wmM' 






mm 



m. 







Y|teTERB|^yS 
GRi^D R^ 




w^. 



V' 







Class T- ST-^ 
Rook Q-lB-^ 
CoEyrightN" 



coEmicur defosic 



The YESTERDAYS of 
GRAND RAPIDS 




CHARLES E. BELKNAP 



In Grand Rapids, Michigan 
From 1854 




CO ^ 

OO >^ 



« c 



W IS 



OujC 



c .2 

CO 00 



S3 

(0 



3 

o 



Ike YESTERDAYS of 
GRAND RAPIDS 



Bar 



CHARLES E. BELKNAP 




GRAND RAPIDS 

THE DEAN-HICKS COMPANY 



922 






COPYRIGHT, 1922 

By CHARLES E. BELKNAP 

Made in U.S.A. 



1? 



With acknowledgmen) lo The Grand Rapids Press, 

in which these articles appeared and from which they 

are reprinted by permission. 



(G)CU692856 

Printed by 

±ne Dean-iiicKS Company 

Grand Rapids, Michigan 



DEC 2j ib^^ I 



'ViO I 



Dedicated 

To the Pioneers of Grand River 
Valley whose kindness and :ffiend- 
ship have given me these priceless 
memories of a long and happy life. 



PREFACE 

This little book of retrospection is not in 
any way intended to be a complete history 
of Grand Rapids, although many historical 
events are recorded with strict adherance to 
the facts. 

These "yesterday" stories are rather the 
personal memories of a man who has fol- 
lowed the trails of the Grand River Valley, 
by land and water, from the days when its 
splendid forest was the home of the Indian, 
to the present pa gentry of om* growing city 
with its commercial activities. 

Through the days in which it has been my 
privilege to serve and share in this com- 
munity's progress, my mind has received a 
class of impressions which the passing years 
have failed to efface, and in this book these 
memories are given without assimiption or 
embellishment. I may not have done full 
justice to the noble men and women I have 
known, people who have left me with a love 
of my kind that even trial and misfortune 
has not dissipated. I may also be some- 
what of a sinner in a literary way, yet if 
the stories are interesting and give pleasure, 
let them stand for all the apology that 
should be made and the author will be 
satisfied. 

CHARLES E. BELKNAP 



CONTENTS 



Page 

At the Shipyard Forge 15 

Why Men Came to Michigan 16 

Indian Days 18 

Shantytown and Wildcat Money 20 

More Shantytown 22 

The White Pine Canoe 24 

The Pioneers' Winter Food 26 

Recollections of Louis Campau 27 

Louis Campau's Ways 29 

Rix Robinson 30 

"Governor" Stewart 33 

Mr. Leitelt and the Telephone 34 

Moses V. Aldrich 36 

William Harrison 38 

''Uncle Sam" Cooper 40 

The Indian Mounds — 1 41 

Leveling the Indian Mounds — II 43 

The Indian Plum Orchard 45 

An Indian Wedding Tour 47 

Indian Baskets 48 

The Indian Trails 50 

Where Did the Indian Go? 52 

The Musk-e-Goes 54 

A Day on the Olive Branch 56 

The First River Steamboat 58 

The Old River Fleet 59 

A Honeymoon on a Raft 61 

Early Council Days 63 

Little Stories of Old Grab Comers 64 

Grab Corners 66 

Raising the Grade of Canal Street 67 

Canal Street Jottings 69 

Echoes of Old Dinner Bells 71 

The National Hotel, the Site of the Morton House 73 

The Burning of the National Hotel 74 

The Public Well 76 

The Fisk Lake Log Tavern 78 

Fisk Lake and Pat McCool 80 

The Site of Hotel Rowe 81 

Shooting Under a Light on the Thornapple 83 

Turkey Shooting 85 

The Head and Tail of the Sturgeon 86 

A Fish Supper with the Sons of Temperance 89 

Winter Sports and Perils 90 

The Bridge Street Toll Bridge 92 

The First Garbage Collector 94 

Kent County's Pioneer Jail 95 

The First Sprinkling Wagon 96 

The Police Patrol 98 



Page 

Street Lights 100 

Historic Railway Station 102 

West Bridge Street, 1858 to 1891 104 

Pearl Street Bridge 106 

County Fair 108 

The Old Arcade Ill 

Tramps, After the War 113 

The First Railway Strike 115 

An Old-Time Doctor 116 

Surgery at the Shipyard Forge 118 

The Sons of Malta 120 

When Simeon Baldwin Killed the Bear 121 

The Tale of Three Bears 122 

Squire's Opera House and "Uncle Tom" 124 

The First Strawberry Farm 125 

The Shingle Maker 127 

The Islands 129 

The Mission Land 131 

Rafting and the Chanty Men 133 

Saddle Bag Swamp 135 

The Wild Pigeon 137 

The Straw Man 139 

Pay Days 140 

The Salt Water Baths 141 

Colonel George Lee 143 

Lieutenant Robert Wilson J45 

Colonel Christofer W. Leffingv/ell and His Troop of Cavalry 147 

The Annals of Fulton Street Park 149 

Annals of Fulton Street Park— II 151 

Annals of Fulton Street Park— III 153 

Annals of Fulton Street Park— IV 155 

The Elm Trees 156 

The Blendon Hills 158 

The Blendon Pines and Oaks 159 

The Walnut Forest __ 161 

The Black Hills 163 

The River Rouge 164 

Prospect Hill 167 

Professor Edward W. Chesebro 168 

The Stone Schoolhouse 170 

Rev. James Ballard, Schoolmaster 172 

The West Side Meeting House 174 

With the City Firemen 176 

Firemen of the Fifties 177 

My Fire Service Before the Civil War 178 

Experience of a Volunteer Fireman 180 

The Volunteer Firemen of Early Days 182 

Old Volunteer Firemen __ 383 

Number Three's Engine House 186 

Fire Company Number Three Visits Muskegon 187 

General L C. Smith's "Pony" __ 189 

My Gray Fire Horse 191 



Iha YESTERDAYS of 
GRAND RAPIDS 



By Charles E. Belknap 



At the Shipyard Forge 

In the early fifties, when as a boy I came to the "faraway 
waters/' forests covered the hills and valleys. In the wind- 
ings of the river the steamboat passed between banks bordered 
with wild fruit trees, fragrant grape vines and meadows of 
wild flowers. In places the banks were blue with violets. 
Indian pinks were everywhere. It was an enchanted land from 
which came wild brooks, often bearing canoes loaded with 
native Americans. 

Indians were not strangers to me, my father having lived all 
his life among the St. Regis tribe in the St. Lawrence river 
country. I sometimes think that I breathed into my system 
a lot of Indian spirits that float about in the maze of the 
autumn days. I would have willingly quit the river steamer 
for a seat in one of those canoes with its Ottawa paddler. 

We came to Michigan because the government had given 
my grandfather a quarter-section of timber land as a reward 
for his services in the war of 1812. Father came to do the iron 
work on the boats being built in the shipyard located where 
the Pantlind hotel now stands. 

By stage, river, canal, lake and railroad we arrived in 
Chicago, then known to the Indians as Chi-cog — "skunk 
water.'' In the getaway from this rightly named place we 
secured passage on a lumber schooner for Grand Haven, sleep- 
ing on the deck without .blankets ; then by steamer to Grand 
Rapids. 

Until the white man came with a Bible in one hand but a 
jug of whisky in the other, the Indian was a pretty good 
fellow. When the smithshop was in order and the fires glow- 

15 



THE YESTERDAYS 

ing with heavy forgings for the shipbuilder the Indian began 
to come in for gun repairs. 

The first work my father did for one of them was a fish 
spear. With a grunt of approval he stepped into his canoe, 
went away upon the rapids and soon returned with a sturgeon 
long as a rail with which he paid his bill. North of the ship- 
yard were sawmills, livery stables and Butterworth's foundry, 
whose factory bell was official time. 

Canal Street north was a streak of black mud. On foggy 
days the wornout corduroy looked like alligators. Boys on 
adventure bound rolled up their trousers when going over. 

The first business place south was Bentham's restaurant, 
then Daniel Ball's bank and beyond the tangle of streets 
afterward known as Grab Corners, a very proper term. 

The shipyard forge soon became the roosting place for the 
loafers, traders, politicians, scandal peddlers and would-be 
statesmen. All territory south of Monroe-av. w^as "Shanty- 
town," north of Monroe "Kent" and west side men were "Three 
B's". All stores were on the cash and carry plan. There not 
being many stores on the west side of the river every man go- 
ing to work in the morning carried a bag, basket and bottle, 
the bottle for New Orleans molasses. The boys of these three 
sections seldom went abroad except in gangs. Because I lived 
on Waterloo and dad's shop was on Canal, I was neutral and 
had a chance to save my alley. 

Why Men Came to Michigan 

The financial panic of 1837 was a great disaster to the en- 
tire country and not until the Civil war did the money of the 
people find a solid foundation. 

There had been a universal suspension of specie payments, 
the prices of foodstuffs had so advanced that bread riots were 
common in New England cities. Every young man with brain 
or ambition turned to the west for a home until it seemed all 
the people in the eastern states were moving. One of the early 
writers on the history of Michigan said that by 1837 it 
seemed all New England was coming to the state, every one 
singing the popular song — 

16 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

"Come all ye Yankee farmers 
Who wish to change your lot, 
Who've spunk enough to travel 
Beyond your native spot 
And leave behind the village 
Where pa and ma do stay. 
Come follow me and settle in Michigania, 
Yea — yea — yea — in Michigania." 

There were four more verses to this siren song. The last 
verse promised, "We have first rate girls in Michigan." 

This was misleading, for all the girls in the country not al- 
ready promised were Indians not at all broken to white man's 
ways. 

There were different trails leading to the new country. 
Those from Ohio to the southern end of Lake Michigan and 
by way of Detroit to the valley of the Grand were the most 
traveled. Thousands of young men with packs upon their 
backs and but a few dollars in their pockets left New England 
for a thousand-mile tramp into a wilderness. The girls re- 
mained at home until a cabin in the forest or a shelter in the 
village was made ready for them. Then they joined parties 
westward bound and came on either by trail, the river, the ox 
cart, or the primitive stage to join their mates. It was from 
such stock that Michigan was first populated and in the life 
of every one of these people was a story of privation, adven- 
ture and romance. 

Eugene Carpenter of this city has in his home some of the 
woolen and linen spreads and sheets that his mother made 
during the seven years she was waiting for her lover to return 
from his farm in the woods to claim his bride in 1839. In use 
many years they are still serviceable. Money cannot buy 
these treasures of pioneer days. 

My father used to tell us of a celebrated preacher in York 
State who tactfully complained to his diminishing congrega- 
tion every Sunday that all the brain and muscle of the com- 
munity was moving west and that only the cull timber was 
left. It seems to me now, after living here about all my life, 

17 



THE YESTERDAYS 

that the valley of the Grand drew the cream of humanity from 
down east and that they were predestined to people our beau- 
tiful state. 

Of course one did not expect a man to wade for days in the 
swamps of the Maumee or the marshes of the Kankakee with- 
out retaining a touch of malaria and we know many contract- 
ed the whisky habit, which they imparted to the Indian, by 
constant contact with shaking ague. 

But in the nature of these early men was a wonderful broth- 
erhood and desire to help the other fellow. When a farmer 
"butchered" it was the custom to send every neighbor a piece 
of meat, when the neighbor had a crick in his back all turned 
out and helped harvest his wheat or corn; when a man staked 
out a place for a cabin in the woods every one made a bee and 
in a day the heavy work was done. It seems as I look back 
that my father had an endless patience with and an excuse for 
every shiftless coot. To be sure I have seen him express it 
with the toe of his boot sometimes, but no one ever went away 
penniless or hungry. 

The money of the thirties had been so valueless that men 
had little use for it. The love of it had disappeared from their 
minds and in its place had come a feeling for the other fellow 
and a resourcefulness and self-reliance. I reckon that is why 
every home volunteer of the Civil war was so proud and so 
secure when it was known that ''Michigan is on guard tonight." 

Indian Days 

Until the late fifties all the Indians of this section of the 
state came to "the Rapids" to draw their payment from the 
government. They did not receive a large amount, but it was 
about all the good money that came into the country. 

They came in the spring and bought their winter's trap- 
ping of furs and much fine basket and bead work. They put 
up their wigwams or tents on the islands in the river, and 
squaws heavily loaded, went about from house to house offering 
their merchandise for money or in exchange for salt pork, gaudy 
calico, or ribbon for their hair. They accepted all the food 
set before them, not expecting to pay for it, since they never 

18 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

thought of pay when they shared their often scanty supply. 
To an Indian business was one thing, hospitality another. 

In physical appearance the Italian woman landing at Ellis 
Island is not unlike the early day Indian woman, but in artis- 
tic dress the squaw outshines her. The squaw's waist and 
skirt for dress-up occasions was usually blue broadcloth, skirt 
knee high, with leggings that fastened above the knee. Her 
clothing was ornamented with beads and porcupine quills. 
Smoke-tanned buckskin made her moccasins; and her long 
braids of black hair were dressed with bear's oil. She was not 
so attractive in her working garb and was often bowlegged and 
squatty from the heavy burdens carried upon her back. Not 
much could be expected of people who were strangers to soap 
and who moved to a new locality instead of trying to clean 
house. 

My mother lived near Indians all her life and knew their 
ways of living. She had a place in her heart for the Indian 
mother. Often they came with pieces of cloth for her to cut 
into garments "same as the white squaw wore." One morning 
a big Indian stalked into the kitchen where mother was frying 
doughnuts. She motioned to the panful on the table and he 
ate about three dozen. "Heap good!" his only comment. 

My mind is full of questions as I think of the Indian friends 
of my boyhood. Why did the government not send them cloth- 
ing instead of money? Why did we send missionaries to the 
heathen when we had thousands of Americans in our own land 
needing help and salvation? Why did people gather in the 
pennies for the foreign missions and hold their noses in holy 
horror of the depraved Indian? 

An Indian with his family came up the river one Sunday 
morning. Through the open windows of the barn-like church 
upon the bluff, came the hymn, "Praise God from Whom All 
Blessings Flow." The Indian, whose God created the 0-wash- 
to-nong, leading a little fellow by the hand, his squaw follow- 
ing with a papoose upon her arm, came to one of the open win- 
dows. There were many vacant seats but they were not invited 
to enter. In the shade of the building the papoose slept in the 
arms of its sad-eyed mother. When the preaching, mostly of 

19 



THE YESTERDAYS 

the fire and brimstone variety, was over, the hymns sung and 
the collection taken, the Indian helped his squaw into their 
canoe and they were soon lost in the swirl of the rapid river. 
Was that the reason that next day the wind picked up a heavy 
plank from a lumber pile and sent it like a thunderbolt through 
the gable of the main entrance of the church and out of the 
gable at the other end half way across the river? It must have 
been a hint to that congregation. They did not patch the scars 
for a long time and eventually this old church became a cooper 
shop. 

Shantytown and Wildcat Money 

From the first settlements at the Rapids in the early forties 
to the days of the Civil war that portion of the village south 
of Monroe-av. was known as Shantytown. Practically all of 
the travel up to 1858, when the Grand Trunk railroad came, 
was by stage over the plank road from Kalamazoo or by boat 
up and down the river. The steamer winding its way in the 
channels between the islands came to a landing at a barn-like 
yellow warehouse located at just about the present corner of 
Fulton-st. and Market-av. The wind south by west cleared 
away the lowland fog and from the upper deck of the steamer 
the passenger's first glimpse of Shantytown left him in doubt 
as to whether he was landing in Killarney or Montreal. 

In the contest for freight the two-wheeled French dray was 
crowded by the green jaunting car of the Irish. There was one 
thing easy to learn in French and that was the cuss words, but 
in all the windings of Shantytown I never mastered the swear 
words of the Irish. 

Because these dray men never understood what sort of 
names they were called, they never came to blows. Pierre 
going away with a barrel of molasses and Mike with a cask of 
corn whisky might collide, but there was that good fellowship 
that never hit a man after he was down, so the town prospered. 



It was natural that Shantytown should grow, situated at the 
foot of the rapids where all boats were obliged to dock. People 
landing here found shelter and welcome at the Eagle hotel 
or the Rathbun house. There was keen competition between 



20 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

the two and their "runners" met the boats and shouted loudly 
the merits of their respective places. The Eagle had a darkey 
to black your boots. If they needed a shine just throw them 
outside your door and next morning they were ready for you. 
There were no bathrooms. If you needed a bath there was the 
whole east channel of the river at the back door and the 
water always clean. 

The Rathbun in order to meet competition resulting from 
the bathing privileges, cleared away the tables in the dining 
room and had a dance every night. Also white sugar for 
tea and coffee, was served at the Sunday dinner. 

Among the ebb and flow of people who came to these hotels 
were many men and women who stayed to build up the city 
and the state — men of the highest credit and industry who 
built machine shops, stores, warehouses, schools and fine dwel- 
lings. There might well be a bronze tablet at every corner of 
old Shantytown to mark the trail of both the Indian and the 
white man. 



As I remember now Bentham's restaurant was to me the 
most important place in town. It stood where the Pantlind now 
stands and it may be the Pantlind's reputation for good things 
to eat is an inheritance rightly handed down. Bentham spec-' 
ialized in smoked venison. Sometimes he had boiled ham, 
venison stew with onions; in the winter oysters that came 
through in gallon wooden kegs; usually a kettle of pea soup 
to draw French trade, but dried venison always. 

Nobody need go hungry, for if a fellow's credit was low he 
could set his traps for muskrat and trade the skins to Bentham 
for his daily bread. Ice cream had not been invented, but the 
present-day girl and boy has nothing over the boy who had 
a chunk of dried venison to gnaw on. Molasses candy was the 
great confection in those days, paid for with our big copper 
cents. 

The floors and table tops at Bentham's were not scrubbed 
to excess, but all the same he liked the boys and the boys liked 
him. We watched him grow gray and when the Indians with 
canoe loads of bucks no longer came, the taste of the town 

21 



THE YESTERDAYS 

changed to beer and pretzels and Bentham's became a thing of 
the past. 



But of the time that I am writing the public could no more 
get along without Bentham's than they could without the Dan- 
iel Ball bank next door. This bank was open for business ten 
hours each day. 

One never knew where the money was printed. Paper 
dollars changed value every time the sun went behind a 
cloud, just as eggs do nowadays. 

Father had on his desk a weekly publication called the 
Bank Note Detector. When a customer paid his bill in paper 
money father consulted this authority to find how many cents 
on the dollar it was worth. Often a piece of fine picture paper 
was valued at ten cents on the dollar. This money was called 
"wildcat" and if a nervous person rocked the boat it sometimes 
became valuable as wall paper, being cheaper and more orna- 
mental than whitewash. However, the Daniel Ball bank never 
became so demoralized. 

It was reported that there was a nail keg of silver coin that 
kept traveling about the state by various methods in order to 
keep the paper money circulating. If by some mishap this coin 
got a day behind the bank inspector, it came to be my duty to 
take the gentleman out and keep him bass fishing until the 
emergency was over. 

This explains why the cashier of the Daniel Ball bank, 
George Lee, who later became a captain and most valuable aid 
to Gen. Philip Sheridan, and I, were such close friends during 
the Civil war. Capt. Lee then befriended me in a hundred 
ways. I remember Capt. Lee telling the bank examiner that 
the Goddess of Liberty on the quarter-dollars was shivering 
with cold she had been pinched so often. 

More Shantytown 

All of Shantytown was sewered and graded long before the 
coming of Louis Campau. Grandville-av. was blazed first 
by a homesick cow that became lost in the woods. It skirted 
the shore of Sargeant's pond, crossed Snake creek on a log and 

22 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

disappeared over the hill. There were plenty of hills in Shanty- 
town covered with grand trees, and creeks that wandered about 
and found their way to the river. 

From the boys who sailed their toy boats on Sargeant's 
pond grew the men who fought in the river fleets of the Civil 
war. Today you could not locate the pond with an oil derrick, 
for the pond went up, not down. And from this pond was 
gathered the crew that rescued Mrs. Quirk's cow. A grand bit 
of water came out of a hillside, ran a short race and wasted 
itself in a swamp where the Union station now stands. Mrs. 
Quirk's cow had a fine pair of horns and they were the only 
part of the animal in sight above this swamp when the alarm 
was sounded. 

The boys left the pond on the run, shirts and trousers were 
cast aside and into the mire they went. Clothes-lines were 
gathered from all the neighborhood and victory depended most- 
ly on the staying quality of the animal's horns. If they had 
pulled off she would have been a total loss. But with clothes- 
line and fence rail the cow was brought to dry land and it was 
a grand day, celebrated by all the neighbors on their way home 
from work. If it had not been for kind hearted helpers Mrs. 
Quirk's hospitality could not have lasted, but each helper had 
a little brown jug in reserve. For that locality, it was an event 
only equaled by the dedication of the present Union station. 

Men were not envious in those days. If one built a house 
16x20 the next fellow did the same. When there came the 
annual increase in the family a lean-to was added to the orig- 
inal structure. The census man had only to count the lean-tos 
to get the size of the family and study the clothes-line for the 
sex. In those early days all Mike had to do was carry brick 
to the top of a building and a man up there did all the work. 
When the bell on the foundry rang six o'clock he went home, 
smoked his pipe on the hillside and thanked God for the good 
place he had in the world. 

In a vacant lot opposite the Eagle hotel the boys and girls 
of Shantytown staged a circus one summer. There was no 
lack of talent in the acrobatic work and the prettiest girl on 
Waterloo-st. gave a tight rope performance. For all that the 



THE YESTERDAYS 

circus went busted financially and had to give way to a man 
who put up a shingle mill. He was the inventor of a machine, 
run by steam power, that would shave shingles out of white 
pine blocks. That mill soon buried itself in shavings. It burned 
shavings for fuel and gave them away for kindling and yet 
they piled up. When the knives were not shaving, the whistle 
was blowing, for the smokestack kindled fires on all the roofs 
around about. Before many days the proprietor had skipped 
for Canada and the sheriff was in charge. 

So within a short time the town lost two industries — ^a circus 
that started out to eclipse Dan Rice of national fame — and a 
monster that fairly devoured pine trees. But nothing could 
keep Shantytown from growing. Look at it as it stands today. 

The White Pine Canoe 

There are many old-time river men living in this vicinity 
who remember my painted canoe and at least one old deck-hand 
of the steamboat crew who threw stones in the fight with 
the thieving band of Indians that attempted to steal it away. 

I had owned at different times several fine canoes and some 
common ones in which I picked up shingles and lumber from 
wrecked rafts and made good money for a young boy. 

One year there came to the shipyard forge an Indian color 
maker with his squaw, who was an artist in bead work. Their 
camp was set on Island No. 2 in a grove of water maples. 

They had a very large dugout canoe of beautiful lines which 
carried all their outfit, including an ugly dog to guard the wig- 
wam. They were members of the Crane tribe at the Soo. The 
man mixed colors in an iron kettle over the forge fires and the 
woman sold her baskets and bead work to the ladies in Kent. 

My father and mother were kind to them and when they 
went away the man said, "Twelve moons, come with canoe for 
boy." The next spring they came again and the man made me 
understand that there was a canoe hidden in the willows at 
Sand creek, the current in the river being too strong to tow it 
after his heavy dugout. 

I found the canoe as directed. It was made from white 
pine, fancifully painted, and modeled after a Canadian birch 

24 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

bark. It was a beauty and I kept it in the basement of the 
shipyard forge except when in use on special occasions and 
never loaned it. 

It was but a short time before it was taken out of the base- 
ment in the night and I began to search among the camps on 
the islands and found it with a lot of Indian canoes. I made a 
jump into it and started across the stream with several In- 
dians after me. 

The steamboat Michigan was just leaving the dock in the 
east channel and I sent my boat between the dock and the 
wheel, which was slowly turning. 

The engineer shut off steam and the deck-hands began a 
free-for-all with their pond poles. Young Indian boys on the 
island began shooting arrows and the passengers abandoned 
the upper deck, and when the deck-hands could not reach the 
enemy with their poles they jumped ashore and began throwing 
stones. 

My canoe was lifted on deck and the Michigan swung 
around in the channel and steamed away for the Haven. I 
was afraid to be set ashore at any down river point so re- 
mained on the boat, washing dishes to pay my freight. 

On the way up next day we met the Indians coming down 
and Tom Robbins tried to run them down, but could not fol- 
low them into the marshes. They were just some of the riff- 
raff and the sheriff had ordered them away from the city, so 
my scalp was saved. 

But I have only pleasant memories of the Crane and I 
love to think of him in some glen of the woods as he dreamed 
and worked over my canoe — a chip from the log here and 
there and then the color design intended to portray his vision 
of the white boy and the red man paddling a river that had no 
end — ^their friendship would never end. Of course he expect- 
ed a gift in return and father gave him a five-tined spear made 
at the forge and mother made Gull, his squaw, happy with 
turkey red cotton for a dress. 

When the Civil war came Crane qualified as a sharpshooter 
and his trail is lost in the swamps of Virginia. 

25 



THE YESTERDAYS 

The Pioneers' Winter Food 

One of the serious problems of the pioneer settler of any 
northern country is the storing of provisions for the winter 
months. Southern Michigan offered an abundance of game 
•and wild fruit to the man who sought a home within its bound- 
aries. Boys then, as now, had a great capacity for food and I 
remember my father's preparations for winter much better 
than I do my school lessons, and the cellar of our first home 
comes to mind more clearly than the parlor, for all its dulcimer, 
what-not, wax wreaths, and shell baskets. 

This cellar had a dirt floor and riverstone walls. Along 
one side were the potato and apple bins ; on the other the pork, 
beef, pickle and sauerkraut barrels and a bin for turnips, car- 
rots and beets. Mother's spiced wild pigeons were a specialty 
and every fall father made an outing with others to Battle 
point down the river and put up barrels of black bass in salt. 
It was possible to get a twenty-five pound kit of salt whitcfish 
at the Haven for two dollars. When it was time for Thanks- 
giving turkey we went over toward the John Ball Park country 
and shot one. And if we got two, mother made us give one to 
the minister. 

This was long before the time of glass fruit jars or before 
one could buy canned stuff of any kind, but all during the 
summer we gathered the wild fruits, blackberries for jam, wild 
plums and verily the apple of temptation must have been the 
wild crabapple stewed down in maple syrup. During autumn 
days the kitchen was the drying place for pumpkins. A 
spokeshave was used to pare the rind, then they were sliced 
in rings and hung on a pole to dry. When well dried they were 
stored in the attic and rings were brought forth about once a 
week to be stewed for sauce or pies. 

Apples, and peaches, when we could get them, were pared, 
quartered, strung on twine and hung to dry over the kitchen 
stove, where they made a fine place for flies to roost. House- 
wives who were finicky covered the stuff with netting. 

Ham and shoulders — beef and venison — were dried in the 
old smokehouse. Then the cellar had its barrel of soft soap, 
kept well covered because for some reason or other it seemed 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

always to be a trap for the family cat; and also its barrel 
of vinegar and cider. Beside them stood smaller kegs of wild 
grapejuice and elderberry wine. 

Some families that had a member afflicted with shaking 
ague had a keg of wild cherries covered over with whisky. The 
mayor of the village added some of the inner bark of the 
cherry tree to his keg and one needed the appetite of a Geor- 
gia goober-grabber to share in his hospitality. 

In some homes these fancy medicinal barrels fairly crowd- 
ed the pork kegs and potato bins out of the cellar. 

Nearly every family had its own chickens and the price 
of eggs did not go up every time the sun went behind a 
cloud; it also had a cow and had a pig. The pig ran at large 
and one year the village council found it necessary to pass 
an ordinance restraining people from emptying the dregs of 
their cherry whisky into the gutters. 

Along about Christmas time jars of fresh lard, sausage and 
mincemeat were added to the cellar stock. Mince pies were 
made a dozen at a time and set out to freeze. Mother liked 
a bit of apple brandy added for flavor, but always had a tem- 
perance one or two laid by for the emergency of a guest who 
had signed "the pledge." 

Thinking of those days brings to mind the peach blow po- 
tato that mother cooked in the steamer and brought to the table 
in its pink silk coat. A helping to a mealy mound of four with 
a generous covering of sausage sent a boy away to work with 
sunshine in his heart. 

In spite of all the preparation a hard winter often found 
the provisions running low. Donation parties were given to 
help the poor, the sick or the needy. Charity was an individual 
not an institutional affair and it all came "out of the cellar." 

Recollections of Louis Campau 

I had as a boy — and still have — a great fondness for canoes. 
I had one that a white man made. Only when empty would 
it stay right side up. I kept this canoe to lend and nobody 
ever borrowed it the second time. But Mr. Campau, Uncle 
Louie, as we called him, helped me to buy a real one, an 

27 



TH E YESTERDAYS 

Indian dugout that sat on the water as well balanced as a 
duck and so light that one man might easily carry it over 
portage. 

Uncle Louie had little confidence in canoes, but there came 
a time when he needed one in his business and so helped me 
pay for a good one. In the fall an Indian had received goods 
and money of Campau under contract to bring in return his 
trapping of furs and skins the following spring. However, he 
defaulted in payment — sold his pack to Bill Roberts in ex- 
change for goods and skipped out for a sugar camp near Haire's 
landing down Grand River. 

Campau started in pursuit with me for his paddler. On 
canoe voyages Uncle Louie always had a place in the bow with 
his shotgun across his knees. He made some very good shots, 
but much of the time he was singing little snatches of French 
song or pointing out interesting scenes and locations, talking 
much as an Indian would — bits of story or narrative. "At 
this place I once camped for a week," ''here I tip me over and 
lose my gun," ''there upon the high bank an old squaw had one 
bad fight with a bear. She take cubs out of log. Old bear 
come back sometime, strike with paw, squaw roll down bank, 
bear, too. In water squaw dive long way." 

When we took this trip after the defaulting Indian we land- 
ed about ten miles below town. There were still patches of 
snow in the woods and we had no trouble in following a trail 
to the sugar camp. There were hand-made pine sap troughs 
under the many trees that had been tapped and near the fire, 
over which a large kettle of sap was boiling, was a large stor- 
age trough hewn out of a walnut tree. Nearby, an open front 
wigwam faced the fire, its floor strewn with cedar and balsam 
sprays. 

The walnut trough was nearly full of sap. From there it 
was dipped into the kettle — and what interested me most was 
four little Indians having a hot bath in the contents. Stones 
heated about the fire had been dropped into the trough until 
the sap was of a very comfortable temperature. When the fire 
burned low a little Indian would hop out of the bath, pile 
more wood on the fire, add a hot stone or two to the bath and 

28 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

plunge into the sap again. I never had an appetite for Injun 
sugar after that trip. 

But there was hard work as well as frolic in the sugar camp. 
Presently the Indian and his squaw came in from the bush 
with neckyokes on their shoulders and buckets of sap on either 
end. Uncle Louis marched up and demanded either the pay due 
him or the goods bought at Bill Roberts' store. To enforce his 
claim he gathered up the clothing belonging to the papoose in 
the bath. The squaw grabbed an ax and chased us out of 
camp. Uncle Louie left much of the clothing he had claimed 
scattered along the trail. I dropped the shotgun I had been 
carrying and my feet touched only the high spots so I reached 
the river bank a full half-mile ahead of my boss. 

There was not much pleasure paddling against a strong 
current, but resting on my knees I did not miss a stroke, neither 
did I interrupt Mr. Campau, who expressed himself very clearly 
in a flow of French dialect until we made our landing at a 
dock back of the Eagle hotel. 

Louis Campau's Ways 

It was not difficult in the early days of the village to re- 
tain a memory of men's faces and to assign to nearly every man 
an occupation in the community. 

In meeting a man there was time to size him up, class him as 
a farmer, a wood chopper, a doctor or a merchant ; either a good 
fellow to touch elbows with or to give a cold shoulder. I 
must confess I sometimes made poor shots, but found first 
impressions usually good to build upon. It did not disturb 
my mind to find the man I had picked for a minister of the 
church around the corner, to be the engineer of the poker games 
on the steamer Olive Branch — broadcloth. 

My recollections of Louie Campau are just those which 
any boy would have of a well known business man. I had 
sized up Mr. Campau as an Indian trader by the odor of his 
clothing. A person cannot handle muskrat, coon or smoke- 
tanned buckskin and not retain a bit of the Indian atmosphere. 
MoreovOT, Mr. Campau often wore articles of Indian clothing, 

29 



THE YESTERDAYS 

buckskin coats, or in the woods or canoe beaded or quill- 
trimmed moccasins. 

Most of the merchants or traders were content to buy the 
skins or furs brought to them, while Mr. Campau went out 
among the Indians soliciting their furs. It was always fair 
weather when good fellows got together and Mr. Campau was 
a good fellow. Nevertheless he had a shrewd weather eye and 
an anchor ready to throw — if his foot slipped he came down 
hard. 

Mr. Campau could not have talked if his hands had been 
tied. When he had an interesting subject both hands and 
tongue were busy and if he lacked a desired word in English 
he substituted French or Indian. 

My father often lunched with Mr. Campau in Bentham's 
restaurant. On one occasion Campau gave a dinner at Ben- 
tham's for a party of distinguished people from the east. The 
menu most likely was planked whitefish, roast wild duck, stew 
of venison ribs, French style, with dessert of wild honey, or 
wild crabapple sweetened with maple sugar and hot biscuit, 
washed down with sparkling apple cider fresh from the keg. 

The Morning Enquirer was supposed to report the speeches 
made at this dinner, but at 3 a. m. no copy had been sent in. 
A. E. Gordon, the editor, was a guest at the dinner and my old- 
er brother, James, being compositor in charge of the edition, 
sent the office devil, a sleepy young brother, to ask him for 
the report. The young ''devil" returned with a roast duck in 
his hand and said that Mr. Gordon was under the table hunt- 
ing for his collar button and had told him to go back to the 
office and find out how a man was going to keep his shirt on 
when the collar button was gone. 

Those capitalists went back east and reported Grand 
Rapids the best town west of the Alleghenies. 

Rix Robinson 

Rix Robinson was the first permanent white settler in Kent 
county. He came to the Thornapple river in 1821 and bought 
the trading post that had been established by the American 
Fur Co. and was managed by Mme. La Framboise. Afterward 

30 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

he established several other trading posts between the Thorn- 
apple and Grand Haven and during his life held many positions 
of trust. 

I have a very clear memory of Rix Robinson and his wife. 
He came often to our shipyard forge and later to the west side 
shop. With my father I made one visit to his home near Ada 
on a spring morning about 1855, 

We followed the trail that led through a land of wild 
flowers, dogwood, cherry, plum and crabapples. Indian pinks 
gave a blue haze to the ground. 

My dog and I chased rabbits until dad had many times 
to whistle us back to the trail. 

We passed several clearings where men were making homes 
and at each place were urged to "sit by." One tempting in- 
vitation came from a mother who said all she had was some 
fried chicken and hot biscuit. My dog sniffed and I winked at 
dad. That chicken sure smelled good. The mother was work- 
ing salt into butter just out of the churn, and watching the oven 
where the baking was going on. And yet you hear of the hard- 
ships of pioneer days. 

Arriving at Rix Robinson's we found the madam, who was 
a full-blood Ottawa Indian, working in the garden. She was 
so glad to see me that I was embarrassed. She sent me to the 
river with a pan of potatoes to wash and back the second time 
because I did not get them clean enough. 

There was a cook stove, with the oven high up, at the end. 
The pipe ran into the chimney of the fireplace. The table 
of white pine had no linen. The tableware was in a home- 
made cupboard and I set the plates top side down with a steel 
knife and fork, and pewter spoon for each person. 

Before the dinner was ready, a man, his wife and two boys 
landed in a skiff from up river. They had all their calamities 
in the boat and were moving to the Rapids, where work was 
plenty. When they had made a stake they expected to move 
back to the farm. Four more plates were set and we had a 
dinner of boiled potatoes, fried pork, gravy, bread, butter and 
milk. 

In those spring days, the cows found leeks — ^wild onions — 

31 



THE YESTERDAYS 

so when you spread butter on your bread you had an onion 
sandwich. This was natural food for French and Indians. 
Others must cultivate an appetite for it. After the dinner had 
been eaten the mother of the boat party took from the waist 
of her dress some paper money and offered it in payment for 
the food. Mrs. Rix said: 'Taper money no good — dinner 
good. Sometime I sit at your table. No come — other squaw 
come." 

Many a family was helped along the trail by the wife of 
Rix Robinson. She was too big hearted to live within the 
fences of a city. The day we were at her home she wore white 
woman's dress. Her hair in two twisted braids coiled about 
her head was black as a raven's wing. I never saw her when 
there was not a bit of ribbon or a wild flower in her hair. The 
house was clean and tidy. On the beds were patch-work quilts 
of a design such as only an Indian woman could make. One 
could plainly see the Indian in everything. 

I am not ready to say that there was anything striking 
about Rix Robinson. He was just a sturdy business man, very 
blunt and quick in his speech and positive in all he did. The 
Indians had great respect for him. He knew the value of 
money but it was not his god. 

Rix Robinson was a part of the great out-of-doors. He had 
all the gifts of the white man but the eyes of an Indian, while 
Mrs. Rix had the eyes of the wh:te woman and the soul of the 
Indian. Rix was an undeveloped naturalist. If he had put 
in print the things he carried in his head, the world would have 
profited as it has by the knowledge of Burroughs and Muir. 
He did not leave with us the printed word, but as the old resi- 
dents follow the trail to the east, those who have good eyes can 
see in the haze of years, the figure of a Chc-mo-ka-man — a 
white man good to look at, to hail as a fellow well met, a 
sample of courageous men who went forth to conquer the 
wilderness. 

In a river bottom field below the village of Ada, there is but 
the ghost — a few of the stones — that made the foundation of 
his cabin which sheltered rich and poor, young and old, as 
they made their journey down the river to the Rapids. A 

32 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

monument at the top of the hill in the cemetery marks Rix 
Robinson's grave, but it does not end his story, because we have 
for all time his trail — now Robinson-rd. 

"Governor" Stewart 

In recent years the crowing of a candidate for governor from 
every hilltop in the state has reminded me that in 1856 Grand 
Rapids had a volunteer who seemed inspired to devote his life 
and fortune as well as his two hundred and eighty pounds of 
avoirdupois to restoring prosperity to an afflicted people. 

The national issues were buried beneath state and local 
affairs and politicians often spat on their hands and those who 
had coats pulled them off and argued the questions in the 
middle of the road. Some contended that money was tight; 
others that it was loose, but that all the men on Canal-st. were 
tight. 

The ship forge and yard, at the foot of Lyon-st. were the 
busiest places in town. Men gathered in the shop to discuss 
politics and often dad would threaten to throw them out into 
the basin with the driftwood they so interfered with the work. 

Then along came a candidate for governor, a stranger in 
our midst. He registered at the Bridge-st. hotel as the Hon. 
William Stewart, wore a plug hat and a long-tailed coat and 
hired a boy to scatter handbills announcing a public meeting 
when he would lay before the people his plan whereby to save 
the country. 

Bill Stewart, as he was soon called, found his way to the 
forge. He chewed navy plug tobacco and when clinching an 
argument the overflow from his mouth was as good as the moral 
of a dime novel to the young tobacco aspirants. He really made 
himself Grand Rapids' candidate for governor and it is to be 
regretted that he was not nominated. His portrait would have 
made history in the halls of fame. 

From the day of his arrival Stewart and Louie Campau 
were at war. There was a seat by the side of an anvil, a punch 
block, that the Hon. Bill appropriated much to the smith's 
disgust, for it had been Uncle Louis' place. Finally, a Saturday 
came when there was to be a torchlight parade, after which 

83 



THE YESTERDAYS 

at a bonfire in front of the Rathbun House in the evening, 
Hon. Bill would talk. 

The smith finished a bull ring for the steamboat under con- 
struction in the yard and threw it on the cinder pit red hot just 
as the governor, as we had learned to call him, came puffing 
in the front door. Uncle Louie was on hand and witli a pair 
of tongs placed the hot ring on the punch block, where the big 
man at once sat down. Not being trained to quick movements 
his hide had lost its commercial value by the time he reached 
the ship3^ard basin. Uncle Louie was more speedy in leaving 
by the front door. 

There were several of us boys tinkering guns and fish spears 
in one corner. I couldn't remember what became of Stewart 
and so the other day I asked one of those boys, now a great- 
granddad of the town, if he remembered. He declares that 
the Hon. Bill left town face down on a lumber raft. 

In all the days since 1856, if Grand Rapids has had a candi- 
date for governor, some joker has placed a bull ring to trap him. 
Mud slinging is nothing like as effectual as a hot iron. 

Mr. Leitelt and the Telephone 

One day in the late fifties I wandered into the forge of 
the McCray Bros, machine shop, then on the bank of the east 
channel of the river below the Eagle hotel. 

The two young Leitelt brothers were forging a heavy piece 
of iron, such as only strong men could handle. It was not the 
hot metal that attracted me, for I was familiar with forgings 
from my first days. It was the two brothers. I doubt if there 
were two other men in the town of such fine and powerful 
physique. Adolph guided the blows, his brother behind the 
anvil swinging the sledge. It was toward night and the heated 
metal and the glow of the charcoal fires lighted the building, 
casting deep shadows all about. 

I had been reading the tales of Vulcan, "God of Fire," which 
my mother termed mythical, but here was Vulcan in action; 
bared chest and arms, muscled and coated with hair; giants 
midst the flakes of fire. When the heat worked off the forging 
was returned to the fire, more coal heaped on and with man at 

34 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

the bellows the anvil was soon ringing to the blows. Many- 
passers dropped in, for the scene charmed men as well as boys. 

It was thus Big Adolph Leitelt came into my life and for 
many years was associated in my mind with the forge, though 
he served in many capacities. In 1870 he was a city council- 
man and chairman of the fire department committee. I was the 
foreman of the very busy No. 3 company, for this was just 
about the time of lumber yards, sawmills, and stove-heated dry 
kilns, and the town fairly oozed with pitch, pine, shavings and 
sawdust. 

The possibilities of the telephone were just coming to light 
— a few believed but nearly every one scoffed and ridiculed 
the idea of talking by wire. 

William Hovey and his able assistant, Mr. Apted, were 
heads of the Grand Rapids Plaster Co. Mr. Hovey's office 
on Monroe-av. and Mr. Apted's at the mills three miles away 
were the first places connected by wire. This was an experi- 
ment and was made largely with a view of securing quick 
fire service. 

I was eagerly watching the venture. One day Mr. Hovey 
sent his buggy for me and on the way picked up Mr. Leitelt. 
We entered the office to find several other men there. Mr. 
Hovey said to the alderman: ^'Apted at the mills wishes to talk 
with you." He placed the receiver to Mr. Leitelt's ear and 
told him to speak up loud. Leitelt's voice was in proportion 
to his body and when he spoke everytning in the office vibrated. 
Mr. Apted replied with a joke that caused a roar of laughter. 

Mr. Leitelt dropped the receiver, going out into the hall- 
way. It was empty, so he explored the coatroom and every 
place where a man might be concealed, all the time getting 
more impatient until at last he turned on Hovey with a roar 
that was far from a song of peace and returned to his own office 
in full belief that he was being made the victim of a farce. 

The evening after, Mr. Apted cornered Mr. Leitelt in Lep- 
pig's coffee house in the Arcade. 

Leppig's coffee was the best ever and gave men confidence 
to meet the whirl of new events. Mr. Leitelt thereafter became 
a power in the common council for the fire department. His 

35 



THE YESTERDAYS 

assistance was certainly needed for insurance rates had gone 
sky high and much equipment was needed to keep up with 
the growth of the city. These primitive telephones were in- 
stalled in some of the engine houses, as was also the fire alarm 
box system. The number of persons who took stock in the in- 
novations was limited, but nevertheless it was the initial step 
toward our present fine system. About the time these im- 
provements were being made Gen. I. C. Smith was appointed 
chief of the department and I was advanced to the position of 
assistant chief. 

Fire department days did not close my association with 
Mr. Leitelt. In 1884 we were the targets for the public to 
shoot at — the victim to fill the office of mayor at one dollar per 
annum. I beat him to it, for size was of no advantage when it 
was running that won. 

But after all the years Mr. Leitelt comes more often to 
memory with the glow of the forge, the ring of the anvil, the 
swing of the sledge. I am convinced boyhood memories are 
the more lasting. 

Moses V. Aldrich 

One snowy day years ago I was buying a pair of shoes in 
the Cole brothers' store on Monroe street when Mr. Aldrich 
came in followed by an old woman. He said to Mr. Cole: 
**Fit this woman to a good pair of shoes; if her stockings are 
wet get a dry pair. Send the bill to the office." 

Said Mr. Cole to me: "Moses Aldrich is the best customer 
we have. I don't know where he finds the old people that fol- 
low him in here." 

I had respected Mr. Aldrich a long time as banker and 
business man — but this incident gave me a different slant at 
his way of doing things. For years he gave his valuable time 
and out of pure kindness of heart served as county superin- 
tendent of the poor and carried the burden of the county farm 
upon his shoulders, lifting it out of the opprobrium of "poor- 
house," a term so terrifying to unfortunate people. When the 
township supervisors could not be made to understand the need 
of funds Mr. Aldrich put his own pocketbook on the counter. 

36 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

He did not believe that mush and skim milk could take the 
place of beef and cabbage on the table before men who needed 
good, hearty food. He said to one housekeeper, "This man 
needs food, not curses." 

Mr. Aldrich earned a lot of money and always shared with 
those who were unfortunate, but he was the happiest on circus 
day when his funds passed the barefoot boys of the street into 
the big tent and furnished endless rounds of lemonade and pea- 
nuts for the gang. 

Before the Civil war wild money queered the country ; then 
during and after the war government paper money fell below 
the water line and gold and silver disappeared. Money panics 
followed each other so closely they often collided. Men could 
not finance any kind of an enterprise. Many, in order to pay 
their workmen, issued their own shinplasters and small tokens 
redeemable in sums of five dollars. Then came a time when the 
government issued gold notes of ten and twenty-dollar denom- 
inations and for some years a discount of twenty per cent 
or more was required on paper money. 

The gold coin note was yellow to distinguish it from the 
greenback. Timid people hoarded the gold notes and the term, 
^'Yellow-legged bankers," was quite commonly applied to weal- 
thy widows. Gold notes circulated but were out of sight most 
of the time. 

It seemed every banker as well as politician in the country 
had a plan to resume specie payments. The bank of Ledyard 
& Aldrich was on the comer of Monroe and Ottawa. One day 
there appeared in its window a brass-hooped barrel full of 
gold eagles, lying on its side, the head removed and its con- 
tents displayed to the delighted gaze of the people on the 
street. 

Mr. Aldrich announced that "the way to resume is to re- 
sume," the first banker in the United States to start the game. 
Gold, silver and yellow-legged gold notes came out of hiding 
and the much abused greenback was placed at par. Shinplas- 
ters and brass tokens disappeared along with fish-scale three- 
cent coins and Canadian twenty-cent quarters. 

Out of Wall street came a wail of dismay at the thought of 

37 



THE YESTERDAYS 

losing their exorbitant discounts and personal calls from its 
magnates were made on the banker of the lumber town. 

If Moses Aldrich had not been so modest he might have be- 
come the national secretary of the treasury. Mr. Aldrich was 
mayor of the town in 1868-69-70. He was not long with us, 
but every day of his fifty years was a benefit to the town. 

William Harrison 

Seeing an occasional old farm wagon about the country 
with the name Harrison on the side, has prompted the writing 
of a few words regarding an early time industry — the Harrison 
wagon works, and its interesting founder. 

When Mr. Harrison, in 1856, came to Grand Rapids from 
Kalamazoo, where he first began the manufacture of farm wag- 
ons, he built the stone fort, as it was called, upon the river bank 
on Front-st., near Third, which for many years was headquar- 
ters for the Harrison wagon. This was the first building on the 
river in that vicinity. The canal had not been built and a deep 
basement allowed for the blacksmith shop, the main floor a 
w^oodworking room and the second floor a paint shop, with a 
rope tackle block by way of elevator. 

Equal to the coming of a circus was the arrival of the 
wagon train, which came over the plank road from Kalamazoo, 
loaded with material and machinery for the Front-st. shops. 
The railroad had not reached the town and all the freight came 
by the river or over the ungraded highways. 

Wagons were in great demand and every part of them had 
to be made by hand. They required good material and skill in 
making. The locality had an abundance of fine timber, but 
it was standing in the forest and had to be cut and well sea- 
soned before it was fit for use. 

One of the first transactions of Mr. Harrison was the pur- 
chase of the seasoned oak plank flooring from the barn of 
Haines Edison and the oak fence rails inclosing the farm, 
which material was bucked up into lengths and shaved into 
spokes and felloe stock. Mr. Edison received in payment 
the first farm wagon made in the Harrison works. 

The buyers of farm wagons had very little ready money 

38 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

and needed long-time credit, so the financing of the factory 
was a far greater problem than that of building the wagon. 
For years wagons were exchanged for lumber or anything the 
farmer raised. The produce of the grower paid the wages of 
the men, but the iron, paints and oils were bought in 
outside markets and had to be paid for in money. 

Mr. Harrison's motto was "More wagons." His every 
effort was to produce more wagons than any other factory in 
the world. Only the Studebaker factory at South Bend turned 
out a greater number. Soon after the Civil war the govern- 
ment backed the South Bend company in order that the great 
west might have transportation. Mr. Harrison had no back- 
ing other than the local bankers could give with long-term 
farmers' notes as security. At one time Mr. Harrison had in 
his office an apple barrel full of notes tied in alphabetical 
bundles. 

But the factory under competent management spread from 
the old stone fort to many branches, sawmills, smith shops, 
vast lumber yards. The manufacture of wagons became a 
leading industry of the north; other factories sprung up and 
competition was fierce, but still more wagons was the Harri- 
son slogan, backed up with bulldog persistency. For years long 
trails of wagons were a common sight on Monroe and Canal- 
sts., the Harrison name going to every part of the world. 

In later years Mr. Harrison lived on the crest of West 
Bridge-st. hill, his great plant was moved to the north end of 
the west side and he drove between home and factory in an 
open buckboard wagon. He was very simple in his taste. His 
lunch at noon often consisted of bread with a thick-cut steak 
toasted on the end of an iron rod over the coals of the battery 
boilers, the grimy stokers and greasy engineers sitting about 
with their full dinner pails, enjoyed their noon-day meal no 
more than did the "old man." 

He never spent an idle day and at one time was very well- 
to-do, but unfortunate investments in oak forests that turned 
out to be huckleberry marshes depleted his resources and he 
departed this life just about the time a black frost in the guise 

39 



THE YESTERDAYS 

of a gasoline smudge from the newly-invented automobile 
settled upon the wagon industry. 

"Uncle Sam" Cooper 

With permission I quote from the South Bend Times-News 
of a late date: 

"Uncle Sam, the one and original, has made his debut in 
South Bend in the person of W. E. Cooper of Pittsburgh, Pa. 
'It's all because of my whiskers,' said Mr. Cooper, who has 
seen seventy-nine years, and has been called upon many times 
during the past quarter of a century to act as the famous 
American 'uncle'. 

" 'I don't use paint or powder or other fixin's, except my 
suit and hat — that's why they call me the only original Uncle 
Sam. It started back in Pittsburgh about thirty years ago 
when the folks began to call me that and since then I have been 
kept pretty busy dressing up for special occasions. 

" 'During the war I did what I could to help along the sale 
of thrift stamps and served in all the four Liberty bond drives. 
I guess I have been in nearly every state in the Union attend- 
ing conventions and celebrations of various kinds. It's a 
great life.' " 

People might be interested to know that Mr. Cooper was 
formerly a resident of Grand Rapids. In 1880 he established a 
commercial collection agency in the Ledyard, now the Kelsey 
block, on Ottawa-st., employing ten clerks. Among the men 
with whom he did business and whom he remembers well were 
Allen Durfee, E. S. Pierce, Morgan and Avery, H. W. Green, 
monument dealer; Dr. Robinson, dentist; Shellman, the op- 
tician and A. B. Knowlson. During Home-coming week 
in the year of 1890 Mr. Cooper represented Uncle Sam for the 
A. B. Knowlson Co. in the street carnival held at that time, 
attracting a great deal of attention. Mr. Cooper was also one 
of the organizers of the Grand Rapids Humane society. 
When the basement of the Widdicomb building was being exca- 
vated Mr. Cooper, Dr. Maxim and Rev. Charles Fluhrer, the 
beloved pastor of All Souls' church, who happened to be watch- 
ing the work, were much shocked at the abuse of the horses by 

40 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

their drivers. It was the finishing touch to much agitation along 
this line and the society was formed with Rev. Fluhrer as 
president and Dr. Maxim as secretary, and Mr. Cooper was 
chosen special deputy sheriff and sent to Chicago to study the 
operations of the Humane society in that city. Mr. Cooper 
made enemies, for the work led to court where cruelty to an- 
imal cases were often bitterly contested. 

For ten years all the time he could spare from his other 
interests was devoted to humane work with no financial return 
for his isejrvices. 

In the strenuous idays of the recent World war Mr. Cooper 
came to his old home town and led the Liberty bond parade, 
marching at the head of the column as Uncle Sam, but few 
of the thousands looking on knew his history. 

He is now a resident of the Elks' Home at Bedford City, 
Va. In spite of his failing eyesight he is able to find his way 
around and is willing to don his striped trousers and stove- 
pipe hat to oblige his friends. 

Mr. Cooper's mortal days may have an ending but the 
wit and wisdom of the cartoonist will keep Uncle Sam on the 
front page as a type of the great American. 

The Indian Mounds — I 

Who were the mound builders of western Michigan is a 
question that has often been asked but never fully answered. 

The works of the mound builders were found all over east- 
ern America. Although simple in form they convey by their 
contents and structure more in regard to the habits and art of 
their authors than can be learned from all their other works 
combined. 

The burial mounds and their contents tell us of individual 
traits, something of the social life, their tastes, and something 
also of the diseases to which they were subject. 

In 1874 a committee consisting of Edwin A. Strong, Capt. 
W. L. Cofiinberry and Dr. Joel C. Parker explored many of the 
forty-seven mounds then remaining in and about the Rapids. 
These mounds varied from three to fifteen feet in altitude and 
in diameter from ten to more than one hundred feet. 

41 



THE YESTERDAYS 

Early missionaries and traders said the Indians of their 
day had no knowledge of the origin of these mounds. They 
only knew they were the work of men and had great vener- 
ation for them. 

On the mission land along the river south of what is now 
Bridge-st. stood many of these mounds, which were leveled in 
the grading of streets in the fifties. For several summers I 
was water boy for the men who did this grading and had ample 
opportunity to gaither the flint arrowheads and other imple- 
ments that were unearthed in nearly every burial mound along 
with the bones of the vanished race. 

There were three very ancient mounds at the present corner 
of Allen and Court-sts. In one of them was a stacked mass two 
feet in diameter and twenty inches high of jet black flints and 
arrowheads of the finest workmanship. No flint of this kind 
was found in any other mound. Below the original surface of 
the ground was found a strata of human remains and with these 
bones were earthen vases, pieces of clay pottery, bears' teeth 
with holes drilled for stringing as ornaments and many stone 
smokino; pipes of fine design. 

In digging a sewer trench a few years later two nuggets 
of pure silver weighing thirteen pounds and one flake of copper 
weighing fourteen pounds, were found. These, with a great 
accumulation of other curiosities, were sent to the Peabody 
Museum in Massachusetts and the Smithsonian Institute in 
Washington. 

Alfred Preusser, the jeweler, bought from me quite a bit 
of silver ornament that I had collected, which he melted to 
use in his shop work, neither of us realizing its historic 
value at the time. By the time of the Civil war I had accum- 
ulated so many relics from the mounds that the attic of our 
home was full of skulls with grinning teeth, arrowheads, bits 
of pottery, smoking pipes of clay, and stone implements. 

This stuff, with the paddles I had used in my canoes, the 
bead work moccasins and snowshoes — souvenirs of many an 
Indian's good will — went up in the smoke one windy night. 
If there is a relic of this collection left it is well covered by 
the walls of the Star mills south of Bridge-st., for our home 

42 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

was located there on the bank of the river at the time I was 
called to war. 

Every state has had its students of the mound builders and 
among the most interested here, I had personal acquaintance 
with Capt. W. L. Coffinberry, Dr. Joel C. Parker, Dr. William 
H. DeCamp and Thomas Porter. 

The Civil war called Coffinberry and DeCamp to service 
in the army. Every one of these men would have been a 
treasure if paid a salary and kept in the state's historical ser- 
vice. They did leave traces of their work in many of the 
museums of the country, but in their days there were no sten- 
ographers and no funds provided for this exploration. These 
men followed the laborers who leveled the mounds and fre- 
quently found use for a boy who should have been in the 
old stone schoolhouse, but who found ancient history more sat- 
isfactory if studied on the ground. 

When Capt. Coffinberry unearthed a skull Dr. DeCamp ex- 
plained how old its owner must have been. Dr. Parker judged 
by the teeth, the kind of food he lived on, and Mr. Porter by 
the contour how much brain power he had developed. Having 
the last word I put the trophy in the wagon and so the group 
worked in harmony. 

Leveling the Indian Mounds — II 

When there was no longer use for the Mission land on the 
west side, it was sold by the government to eastern parties who 
platted it for residential and commercial purposes, with no re- 
gard for its scenic beauty. 

It was a project of cutting down or filling up, and so the 
Indian mounds, with their historic contents, were carted away 
to fill the low places. 

There was no regret over this leveling of the mounds. Even 
the men who gathered the curios reaped considerable financial 
benefit from their sales to museums. 

There was little real money in circulation and the silver 
coins that came from Boston to meet the pay-rolls for the labor 
was appreciated by the business interests of the city. 

This work, which gave employment to many men, was di- 

43 



THE YESTERDAYS 

rected by two brothers, Boston men — William Hovey, a fairly 
tall man, and Albert Hovey, a very small one, whom the em- 
ployed men tagged ''Little Britches." He was very popular 
on pay day. 

There was no school in the summer and the writer had the 
job of carrying drinking water to the various gangs of work- 
men. Microbes had not yet arrived in the valley, so there 
was but one water pail and one long-handled dipper from 
which every one drank. 

The first laborers were Irish. One hardly need read the 
pay-roll to discover this for they kissed the ''Blarney Stone" 
every day, they talked and sang, and every Saturday night 
a Donnybrook fair was held along Canal-st. 

Two-wheeled dump carts, wheelbarrows, picks and shovels, 
made up the contractors' outfit. A short clay pipe and an iron 
tobacco box filled every morning, with a bit of fresh punk in 
one corner, constituted Pat's kit. 

Arrived on the ground, Pat sat down, filled his pipe, took 
from the punk a bit, that with a puff of breath became a live 
coal, dropped it into the pipe and with a long-drawn sigh 
filled his mouth with smoke. Then the lighted pipe "passed 
the loan of a fire," and all the gang spit on their hands and the 
dirt began to fly. 

These men enjoyed their work. With pipe stem clinched 
between the teeth, they sang through their nostrils in a way 
to charm bumble-bees out of their nests in the grass. 

Half the first summer passed before they began to level 
the grounds on the spot where the Powers & Walker factory 
now stands and fill in Front-st. to the north. 

These mounds must have been a resting place for many 
killed in a battle. Entire cart-loads of grinning skulls and 
ancient bones came to light and these were too much for the 
nerves. Pat quit the job and never came back and with him 
went the melodies that had come from overseas in the steerage. 

It happened about that time that all Holland seemed to be 
climbing over the dykes and the leveling of the mounds con- 
tinued, but under a different dialect. 

The Dutch had about the same tobacco boxes, but each 

44 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

one carried a flint and steel with which, by patient practice 
they could get a light but they never lost more than ten min- 
utes in starting a smoke. These men wore wooden shoes and 
corduroy trap-door trousers. 

They might have remained at work had not some 
boys — Richard Blumrich could name them — gathered the 
bleached bones of a horse and assembled them about a stump 
on the trail to Gunnison swamp, near where some of the men 
were living. The ghost standing in the moonlight was one 
bone too many. 

It was coming winter and the grading was laid by for the 
season. The tide of settlement drifted for a time to other 
parts of the town, but many fine homes were built on the 
Mission land, which finally has become a network of railways 
and busy factories. 

There were forty-six mounds all told on the Mission land. 
One long, flat-topped ceremonial place was on the river bank 
at the present western terminal of the Pere Marquette rail- 
road bridge. 

Tradition says the Pottawatomies, who came here as the 
friends of the Ottawas, were the people of the fires. They 
banked in earthen pots, fire that was never permitted to die 
out. A fire always burned on this mound up to about 1840. 
When it was carted away to fill a place in a street I watched 
the diggers for days, hoping to find something of interest to 
my good friend Capt. Cofiinberry, but aside from clamshells, 
ashes and charcoal, it contained little of value. Scattered 
bones of animals that were found well toward the bottom, were 
thought by some to be the bones of a mastodon. 

At the east end of the Lake Shore railroad bridge there is 
a group of Indian mounds still standing. They were par- 
tially explored on several occasions and the relics of very an- 
cient origin taken from them. Some of these treasures are in 
our Kent museum and others in the Smithsonian at Wash- 
ington, D. C. 

The Indian Plum Orchard 

Not imtil the early seventies did the last trace of the In- 
dian plum orchard, on the west side of the river below the pres- 

45 



THE YESTERDAYS 

ent site of the Wealthy street bridge, disappear. Then it was 
slashed into log heaps with other bottom land trees and burned 
in order to make pasture. 

This orchard was well known to early day people. Plums 
grew in profusion on river bottom lands — but these red, yellow 
and blue plum trees were in circles about a moss-grown basin 
of about two hundred feet. It was believed to be an assembly 
place for Indian ceremonials; very early white men told of 
corn dances held there. 

I do not know who cleared away the orchard. My memory 
is of the wonderful training place its moss-grown ring made for 
young acrobats and of delicious plums and wild grapes which 
we carried away by the basketful for our mothers' winter 
supply of preserves. 

Then the crabapple, a sociable little tree, had grown up in 
any vacant spot, not particular about location; in the spring 
its pink blossoms grew so thick that they crowded each other 
off the branches. If a boy tore a hole in his trousers the tree 
furnished thorns to mend the tear. The man who named this 
fruit had never tasted the jam that mother made with maple 
sugar and set away in jars in the cellar or he would have found 
a better name for it than ''crab." 

When I first played there in the fifties, there was under a 
dense growth of vines, a driftwood wigwam with a hole in the 
peak to let out the smoke. A pole bed with swamp grass, fit 
only for a homeless dog, occupied one side. 

One day there came to our home on Waterloo, now Market 
street, an Indian woman with baskets to trade for food. She 
told my mother that her daughter with a newly-born babe was 
lying very sick in the plum orchard wigwam. 

Mother, in company with a French woman who lived near 
Sargeant's pond, took a basket of food and went with the squaw 
in her canoe. 

The French woman brought the little pappoose back with 
her. Her own house was so full of children that her old man 
slept in the stable, but other nearby mothers gave baby clothes 
and furnished catnip tea and Van, the milkman, left an extra 
dipper of milk every morning. 

46 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

That little pappoose had lullabys in Irish, French and Eng- 
lish and if it had stayed until it had learned to talk the dialect 
of the neighborhood its Indian mother would have disowned 
it. But one day when the mothers were having a quilting bee 
she came and carried it away, strapped in a blanket to her 
back. 

Leading to and from the plum orchard were well worn trails 
to the hills on the west and up and down the river banks. The 
Black hills across the river, the council pine up the stream, 
may have been the guide to the orchard, but just what was the 
Indian belief or mystery of this place or why the trees were 
planted in circles of red, blue and yellow, will probably never 
be known by the white man, but it must have been common 
ground to the Indians for long years before the first white 
settler came to the valley. 

There was no evidence that it was a ceremonial place, al- 
though it was within half a mile of the Indian mounds. 

An Indian Wedding Tour 

One early spring day there came up the river a Mackinaw 
boat with a crew of four — ^two young Indian couple — ^upon a 
wedding tour which, as the custom was those days, would con- 
tinue until the ice closed the lakes to navigation. 

They brought a message to my father from an Indian 
friend, and also wanted to trade some moccasins for a spear, 
which would have to be forged. Father told me to take them 
to see my mother, who might like some bead work they had. 
The squaws also asked for some cloth and on the way I took 
them into Bill Roberts' at the corners. 

The store was heated from a stove in the basement. A 
grating set like a register in the middle of the floor let out a 
great volume of hot air. A lady came in wearing a very large 
hoop skirt that touched the floor. She seemed to float along, 
there being no evidence of propelling power inside or under that 
skirt. 

The young squaws were greatly interested as they had 
never seen the like before. The lady sailed serenely along until 
directly over the hot air register, when, like a balloon, she took 

47 



THE YESTERDAYS 

flight toward the ceiling. There was such an exhibition of 
motive power that the lady forgot what she came to pur- 
chase. I was told she never entered Roberts' store again. 

Then I took the brides to see mother and they told her of 
the strange sights they had seen. *'She-mo-ka-man (squaw) 
no can walk in woods, no can go in canoe, wind no let her stay." 
They said a lot in Indian that I will not translate. To their 
wild-wood eyes that hoop skirt was as strange as a marble 
Venus. Truly hoop skirts were never designed for Indian wear 
and were no good in a sailing breeze. 

Nowadays a good many go upon wedding journeys to the 
^'old country" and spend a heap of money. With all their 
wealth they have not half the pleasure this simple Indian 
party had that summer with their sailing and camping; no 
trains to meet, no waiters to tip. If they wanted broiled 
whitefish or barbecued venison they knew where to find it 
without going to cold storage. Each day brought new scenes 
and adventures. When the ice of the winter stopped further 
travel by water they settled down with their tribes to the seri- 
ous business of living. 

Indian Baskets 

One should have lived in Grand Rapids one hundred years 
ago to have a real understanding of the artistic handiwork of 
the Indians of this vicinity. 

Basket weaving is an art in which the Indians of America 
always excelled, but each section of the country has differed 
in material and design. There is no disputing the claim that 
the Indians of the great southwest were the finest weavers in 
the world of articles for their special use, but the Indians of 
the great lakes country were also clever and artistic in mak- 
ing utensils. 

The coming of the whites gave a new outlet for their work 
and they used it as a means of gaining a livelihood in the pe- 
riod of development from wild life to civilization. A student 
of Indian life in the fifties said that the Indians of that time 
were wrestling with problems of which they knew little or 
nothing and often were discouraged. "It was not enough to 

48 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

furnish Indians with subsistence and an agent to look after 
them. Unless they have more than that no tribe will ever 
make progress toward self-support. Something to do, and 
that something to be what he likes to do, because it brings him 
satisfaction and remuneration and nothing seems to furnish 
this so much as basketry." 

Twenty-five years ago, Mr. Mason, the curator of the Na- 
tional museum, said: "After an almost fatal neglect patrons 
of Indian fine art are becoming to appreciate Indian basket 
work." 

In my young days I watched the Indian chop the river 
bank elm and roll it into the water to soak; then after days, 
split it into sections about six feet long and with a wooden mal- 
let pound the sections until the growth could be split into 
splints. Then on a shaving horse with wooden vice jaws they 
shaved it to even thickness and width and it was ready for the 
weaver. The squaws did most of the weaving and the form, 
pattern and idea was fixed in the imagination before the work- 
er took the first step. 

It is for this reason that basketry was most desirable for 
the development of the life of the Indian. The baskets could 
not be counterfeited, for there were no two alike ; each repre- 
sented the maker in her idealism and could no more be im- 
itated than a white man could in fact become an Indian. 

No one can weave the life of created things in nature in 
so strange and unusual manner as the Indian and no one can 
picture the wild longings of the Indian woman with the in- 
visible as it is shown in her work; all her soul is embodied in 
her art. 

I have watched the basket weaver, with hungry, half clad 
children about the wigwams, as with dreamy eyes and patient 
hands she wove in and out different colored feathers, sweet 
grasses and fern stems, staining them with the juices of wild 
berries. Each design possessed a meaning and gave the bas- 
ket its own individuality. In all the colored designs that con- 
tinue around the basket a space is left at the end as if by acci- 
dent, yet it is done on purpose; this is the exit trail of life, 
to close it would mean misfortune to the maker. In the mind 

49 



THE YESTERDAYS 

of the weaver every basket has life and is a part of the one 
who created it. They can tell their own baskets years after- 
wards and will caress them when they see them again. 

And I have seen the squaws as they guided their canoes 
to the river landing, and with pack upon their backs went 
about from house to house in the city accepting cast-off cloth- 
ing with which to cover their children or themselves, in pay- 
ment for their patient labor. 

Even as a boy I could not get out of my heart the feeling 
of resentment that the Sunday collection went to buy flannel 
shirts for the South Sea islanders when the soulful-eyed chil- 
dren in the wigwam on the islands of our own town were hud- 
dled in scant clothing about the fires to keep from freezing. 
The Indian boys and girls were just like white folks and had 
appetites and souls and bodies, and it seemed to me that some- 
thing more than that thin soup called ''sympathy," needed to 
be dished up at meal-time. 

One day I saw a storekeeper give a squaw a small piece of 
salt pork in exchange for a pair of beautifully beaded moc- 
casins that he put in a showcase with a price mark of ten 
dollars. His store was near the shipyard forge and I knew dad 
was handy and would back me up if I got in trouble. So I 
told the storekeeper he was a robber and would surely land in 
hell. 

He may have believed me, for he agreed to give the squaw 
cloth for a skirt and I ran to mother, who never failed, and 
she selected the cloth and made the skirt for the Indian woman. 
We had many fine pieces of Indian bead work and basketry in 
our home in the early days and regret now that they have 
been worn out and scattered about as the years have passed. 

One piece is still in good condition and that is a beaded 
medicine pouch of smoke-tanned buckskin. 

The Indian Trails 
It is well proven that the Indians of Michigan fought with 
the British against the Americans in the war of the Revolu- 
tion. They assembled at Detroit, St. Joseph and Grand Rap- 

50 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

ids and without other food than that found in the forest 
and streams they joined the British forces in the east. 

Those who returned brought knives, axes, some flintlock 
muskets, copper and iron kettles. 

In western Michigan the three great tribes, the Ottawas, 
Chippewas and the Pottawatomies, made "Bock-we-ting," the 
Ottawa term for the rapids of the "Far-away water," their 
meeting place. 

Wherever possible the Indian used the canoe for transpor- 
tation. Often his birch canoe was the work of a year. Long 
journeys were made for the bark and the paint or dyes and 
the maker put his soul into the making of it. 

All the country about the Rapids was blessed with brooks 
and creeks. When the ice in the river moved out in the spring 
these streams were alive with fish that came to spawn. An 
Indian with an ax could in a few minutes make a trap and 
scoop out a load. He kept only those he needed for the day and 
put the others back. This was the reason why the Indian fol- 
lowed the waters. It was a faithful supply train that carried 
his food for daily use. 

Then there were the forest trails that by long use were well 
known to the Indian and followed by the whites in their first 
days or until land surveyors blazed section lines. The In- 
dian followed the line of least resistance. He did not climb a 
hill when he could follow its base. He did not wade a swamp 
when he could follow the shore line. The sun his god, the 
moon his calendar, the tree his compass, he camped when tired 
and he sought and ate his food when hungry. 

I distinctly recall some of the trails leading to the Council 
Tree on the west bank of the river. I followed some of these 
trails while on errands for my father or on my own boy's 
business and pleasure. The charm of the forest is still very 
dear to me. 

There was a trail from the Council Tree leading south- 
west along what is now part of Butterworth-st. It wound 
about between the hills to Finnesy and O'Brien lakes and 
some ponds. Along this trail there were many springs where 
a boy could lie flat on his stomach and fill his radiator and 

51 



THE YESTERDAYS 

the bank of the lake was a good place to rest in the shade 
and enjoy spring fever. Some of the best men that came out 
of the east settled along this trail and cleared farms. From 
the lake the path led to the Indian village on Sand Creek. 

Then there was a trail that followed the river bank either 
way from the Council pine more miles than I know — up- 
stream to what the Frenchmen termed the River Rouge, since 
corrupted to the Rogue river. 

On the east side of the river the Ottawa trail became 
Grandville road and led to all southwest points. At Bass river 
it branched to the Pottawatomie country. 

Going toward the east were many trails. Monroe-av. is 
the sophisticated offspring of a path to the Thornapple river, 
with a branch to Ada. 

The trail that followed around the north end of Coldbrook 
hill was a puzzle to the white settler — a maze of hills, ravines 
and swamps, tangled in forests of maples and oaks. 

In marking a trail the tree was not blazed; sometimes the 
wigwam was lost but the Indian never. If the day was cloudy 
the tree told where to find the sun. That was the god the In- 
dian worshipped. In many myths he is represented as follow- 
ing the trail of the sun god. It is a fascinating trail for white 
men to follow. 

Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls can follow many of the 
old trails and find happiness in the trees, wild flowers, winding 
paths and song birds. 

On the banks of the river after a dinner cooked over a drift- 
wood fire they can partly close their eyes and see in the smoke 
the wraiths of the rugged boys and girls of former days. 

They may even, in a few places, curl up a leaf for a cup 
and drink from a spring that has never ceased to bubble since 
long before the silent Indian paused on his way down the forest 
trail. 

Where Did the Indian Go? 

There is in Indian life a charm that town boys of today 
like to follow and an invariable question that accompanies 
the recital of Indian stores is: ''But where did the Indian go?" 

There is in the question much that causes serious thought 

52 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

and I do not like to put the white man in a poor light. Be- 
fore the country was surveyed the white settler simply took 
possession of the land he desired and cleared it. Then followed 
the ceding to the government by the various Indian tribes the 
lands of the whole territory, the individual keeping his land 
by right of possession. As the land was gradually bought up 
from the government by the whites, the Indians were left home- 
less, became wanderers and under the white man's fire water, 
a bad lot. Then the government made the effort to assemble 
and place them on reservations. 

When the Indians of this locality were gathered for the 
west, agents were paid so much a head and all the worthless 
whites, half-breeds, and squaw men, were inflicted upon the 
pure bloods, who really made good farmers and high-grade 
citizens. Many Indians of the Grand river valley were put on 
the reservation near Pentwater, which was much better than 
sending them west and many were able to take up lands under 
the homestead law. 

Here is what I know about the going of one, and something 
of a few other individual Indians. There came to the Rapids 
every spring in the fifties a full-blood Pottawatomie boy 
about my age named Crow- Wing. He came from the Kala- 
mazoo country by way of the Thornapple trail, which is still 
plain today, running through Charles Holt's place near Cas- 
cade. In the winter this boy's father set a line of traps on the 
river and borders of the small lakes to the south and sold his 
furs to Rix Robinson. In the summer he had a garden patch 
and a fish-jack and spear, spending his nights on the river and 
his days dreaming in the shade of the trees where the water 
rippled between the rocks. 

Crow- Wing wore a red bandana handkerchief for a cap — 
so the white hunter would not shoot him for a deer by mistake 
— large brass earrings and carried about the odor of fish and 
muskrat blended with smoke. He was like any other boy, al- 
ways hungry and mother's side door supply was unlimited. 

In the second year of the Civil war he married an Ottawa 
Indian girl. With a rifle made by Solomon Pierce, the best 
gunsmith in the state, he spent several days shooting at a tar- 

53 



THE YESTERDAYS 

get on the river bank, below the city and qualified as a sharp- 
shooter in Berdan's famous regiment. There were more than 
two hundred Indians in the regiment. Men were proud to be 
called a Berdan and no better Americans than the Michigan 
and Wisconsin Indians wore the blue of the Union army. There 
is one place where many of the Indians have gone. They sleep 
in the southland. 

Crow-Wing came home from the war and Uncle Sam gave 
him as part pay for his service a quarter section on the plains 
of Kansas, where there was not a tree in sight and the nearest 
stream of water a day's journey away. There in the shade of 
a mud-walled hut he died of homesickness. 

If Uncle Sam could recall those days he would give Crow- 
Wing a deed to a bit of land on the Thornapple, with a few 
fish-hooks and some packages of congressional garden seed. 

The white man would not then have reason to blush when 
the school boy asks him what became of the Indian. Most 
of his tribe have gradually faded away along with the forests, 
the deer, the pigeon, and other free things that were so native 
to his life. But it may be some consolation to know that of 
those who still exist some seem on the upgrade and coming 
back in high powered cars. 

The Musk-e-Goes 

It is well known, in the history of Michigan, Wisconsin and 
Minnesota that more than two hundred years ago a tribe of 
Indians occupied the Muskegon river country. They were 
known as the Musk-e-goes — ^'the people of the low country," 
or swamp people. Musk-e-go was also the name of the tama- 
rack tree, native to the low lands. 

In all there were nineteen tribes occupying the different 
valleys about the great lakes, each one bearing a name signifi- 
cant of its locality or its people. 

Thus the Macatawas were the people of the black or dark 
water — hence Black lake and Black river. 

The Pottawatomies were "those who kept the fire." They 
carried it about with them in compliance with a tradition that 
God had given them the fire and told them never to let it 

54 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

go out. Kalamazoo was their term for ''boiling water," the 
rapid, bubbling river. 

Man-is-tee is the Ottawa term for River of the White Trees, 
the sycamore, birch and poplar. 

It is to be regretted that we have not preserved more of 
the Indian names. In naming new streets, locating tourist 
parks and camping places these terms would be most appro- 
priate. 

When the white man arrived they found the Indian had a 
name or term for all the rivers, hills and trees — in fact, a name 
for everything good in his life. He was grateful to the Great 
Spirit and found expression for his admiration of the things 
created for his welfare. 

The Indian of the great lakes country used only four hun- 
dred words to express himself, the white man had thousands, 
and yet the white man found dozens of ''Sand creeks" in Mich- 
igan and hundreds of "Mud lakes," where fish, water lilies, 
cattails, ducks and blackbirds lived. But the Indian, if he 
named any or all of these, saw not the mud or sand ; he coined 
a term — or combination of words — that conveyed a sense of 
his pleasure or satisfaction. For instance, our various white- 
fish lakes and rivers were to the Ojibway, Ude-Kumaigs. One 
beautiful lake called Deer, to the Chippewa was Squaw-an-ga- 
nong, "the water of the two hills"; our own Grand river the 
0-wash-to-nong. 

In that great waterway at Detroit is one of the grandest 
river islands in America. The Chippewas must have had some 
more appropriate term than the white man's curse of "Hog 
island." Not for a hundred years did it come back to life. To- 
day it is the glory of the river and its French designation, 
Belle Isle, is a good term and I hope it will stick. It was a 
sharp jump from the river and its French designation, the 
Rouge (Red) that comes into the Grand at Plainfield, but the 
second jump made it the Rogue river of today. There was an 
unfortunate reason for this and it was clinched when one of 
its sawmill villages was named Gougeburg. It was one of the 
happiest little rivers in the state imtil the mill men came with 

55 



THE YESTERDAYS 

their canthook names and rolled all the romance out of the 
stream. 

I hope some of the nature lovers who are now building 
homes along its winding waters will dig up an old Indian name 
or two and so restore a little of its primitive "non-se" — "come 
from God." Michigan will never get full value from her lakes 
and rivers until its Indian commission renames or restores the 
names of many lakes and streams. 

A Day on the Olive Branch 

One spring morning in 1857, drifting away from the pier 
at the yellow warehouse, the steamer Olive Branch set forth 
for the Haven with a cargo of package freight, a top deck 
loaded with passengers, and Capt. Robert Collins, Pilot Tom 
Bobbins and Cook Jim Dailey, with a full crew of husky 
Irishmen. We were soon winding between banks heavily 
wooded and bordered with wild fruit trees in full bloom — 
plum, cherry, crab and thornapple — all festooned with wild 
grape vines. 

At the dock of Hovey's plaster mills a hundred barrels of 
land plaster were taken aboard. Then angling across the 
river we were against the bank at Grandville, the place nature 
intended should be a town site. The settlement got an early 
start with some of the best men who came out of the east in 
those pioneer days. Here we left package freight and took 
aboard a few passengers. 

At Haire's landing we gathered up a lot of maple sugar in 
tubs and a pile of slabwood for the boilers. 

At the mouth of Sand Creek, where there had once been an 
Indian village, we added a couple going to the Haven to be 
married. Coming down from the upper road they crossed the 
creek on a tree footbridge and the young lady had taken a 
tumble and had to swim out. 

They built a fire to dry out as well as to signal the boat. 
Once aboard the women passengers fitted the young woman 
out in dry clothing and the couple were seated at the captain's 
table for the noon meal. The bride-to-be was game all right. 
She had come west to teach the Sand Creek school, but the 

56 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

first month she found a better job and the log shack's pupils 
had a vacation. 

At the Blendon hills two families of Hollanders all wear- 
ing wooden shoes, were met by a man with a yoke of cattle. 
Their goods were piled high on his cart and the boat tooted a 
goodby as they trailed away into the forest. 

It was a short run to Lamont, a beautiful place so spread 
along the bluffs — for every man wanted a home on the river 
front — that it looked four miles long and four rods wide. 

All the morning a couple had occupied a bench on the 
top deck in front of the pilot house. The man smoked a fancy 
shaped pipe and they talked only in German. Lamont evident- 
ly touched his heart and with arm outstretched he recited 
^'Bingen on the Rhine." I did not understand then as I did in 
the Civil war days, when I served with men who often in battle 
days sang of ''Bingen on the Rhine." 

There have been many changes since those days, but time 
cannot blot out pretty Lamont as it looked to me in my boy- 
hood. 

At Eastmanville Mr. Eastman came aboard with a party 
of ladies and gentlemen. The ladies were carrying many things 
made by the Indian women of the vicinity, beaded belts and 
beaded money bags; some had traveling bags of smoke-tanned 
buckskin ornamented with native dyes and woven designs of 
porcupine quills. The freight taken here consisted of many 
packs of ax helves shaved out of white hickory. 

The long dining table was crowded at the evening meal. 
Capt. Collins toasted the bride-to-be who was garbed in the 
best that several "carpet sacks" afforded. 

At the landing at Bass river Mr. Eastman took charge of 
the dining cabin and with song and story the Olive Branch 
rounded Battle point, paddling past great river bottom mead- 
ows of cattail and wild rice, from which flocks of wild duck 
came swirling overhead. 

There were many inviting channels and waterways and the 
pilot needed to be well informed. 

As we neared the Haven the sun in the golden west dis- 
closed smoking mill stacks, forests of ship masts and drifting 

57 



THE YESTERDAYS 

sand dunes. Beyond was a great sea of white caps. This was 
the end of a "perfect day." 

The First River Steamboat 

History informs us that the first steamboat to navigate 
Grand river was built here and launched at the foot of Lyon- 
st. It was christened the Mason and was presented by Gov. 
Stevens T. Mason with a stand of colors. 

History and tradition both figure in the life of this boat. 
Tradition tells that a sprinkle of whisky instead of champagne 
wet its bow since the people of 1837 had not acquired a 
champagne ideal. 

The craft was fitted with the engine from a boat that was 
wrecked coming around Lake Michigan. This engine was 
conveyed from the Haven in a pole boat. The Mason's first 
captain was William Kanouse, a Frenchman, and he had a 
French crew. The trial trip was made to Grandville and the 
second one up river to Lyons. Steam whistles had not been 
invented and Alanson Crampton stood upon the deck in front 
of the pilot house with a bugle, which was really more appro- 
priate to the occasion. Can you not imagine how the people 
w^ho had settled along the river and those who were coming 
down in canoes and on rafts were startled by the notes? It 
might have been the coming of the Angel Gabriel so far as they 
were informed. 

There is no record that the Mason paid dividends in cash, 
but what it missed in that way it made up in development. 

The first season was freighted with excitement. The 
spring of 1838 came in with a freshet. The Mason, which had 
wintered in the eddy of a driftwood jam near the shipyard at 
the foot of Lyon-st., was carried down stream by the ice and 
stranded near the present location of the Union station. The 
water, after playing this joke, subsided, leaving the steamboat 
among the cedars, willows and cattails. It was an invasion of 
bullfrog territory and before the boatmen could finance relief 
work the spring sun brought all the pests native to the swamp. 
Many of the men who did river work had a holy horror of 

58 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

snakes, also of fever and ague and even the inspiration of 
whisky and boneset tea failed to liberate the Mason. 

Every day the boat settled deeper into the mud. One tra- 
dition that along in the fifties became history is that public 
leaders finally made a "bee". All the men, horses and oxen in 
the settlement were assembled and a corduroy road made 
through the swamp growth to the river. Demi John came also 
and a Frenchman lead the chanty that kept the workers in 
unison. 

But the Mason again afloat cut all sorts of capers ; was lost 
once in Beech tree channel, and went astray in Pottawatomie 
bayou, spent many nights on sand-bars and in 1840 was 
wrecked at the mouth of Muskegon harbor. With the wreck 
passed all but the memories of the river, the melodies of the 
chanty man, the echoes of the bugle from beyond the river 
bend, the glimpse of the Indian in his canoe seeking shelter from 
the swells in the mouth of a creek, the greeting of the settler 
who came to the landing for his mail. If he did not have a 
shilling to pay the postage the captain trusted to his honesty 
or accepted four-foot wood for his boilers in exchange. Steam- 
boat life on the Grand was comparatively safe, even though 
erratic, but in the final wrecking on open water several lives 
were lost and as a moral we offer Mr. Drummond's advice: 
"Now all good steamboat sailor men, 

Take warning by that storm 

And go and marry some nice French girl 

And live on one big farm. 

The wind can blow like hurricane. 

And suppose she blow some more, 

You cannot drown on Lake Michigan 

So long you stay on shore." 

The Old River Fleet 

The first work my father did on coming to the Rapids in 
1854 was the forging for five canal boats for the Illinois canal. 
They were launched in a basin at the foot of Lyon-st. and when 
completed towed to Chicago by way of the Haven. The boats 
then on Grand river were the Michigan, Empire, Algoma and 

59 



THE YESTERDAYS 

Humming Bird, below the city and the Porter and Kansas 
above. The first dam had been built and the boats below the 
rapids came as far as the shipyard at the foot of Lyon-st. dur- 
ing the spring months when the water was high. The boats 
above docked at the head of the rapids about where the Grand 
Trunk bridge now spans the river and ran upstream as far as 
Ionia. 

These boats were mostly side wheelers, flat bottomed and of 
light draft and they burned mill slabs or four-foot cord wood 
for fuel. They had accommodations for about fifty passengers 
and carried a cargo of package freight. The Humming Bird 
was a regular freight carrier built on two scows decked over 
with the paddle wheel between. 

There is a tradition that the engineer of this boat made a 
practice of hanging his hat on the safety valve and one day 
in a burst of speed it blew up just before it reached the city. 
On board was a cargo of Illinois Red Eye and Cyclone Buster 
from Missouri. Some of this stuff blazed when it came in con- 
tact with the river water and the next run of mullet, the story 
ran, had red noses. The fishermen claimed it was due to the 
spread of the Humming Bird's cargo; others said it was a fish 
story circulated by John B. Goff, a temperance advocate who 
was stirring up the people about that time. 

Later came the Pontiac, Nawbeck, the Forest Queen and 
that floating palace, the steamer Olive Branch — a regular 
Mississippi stern wheeler; staterooms with lace curtains, cabins 
and carpets on the top deck and a dining room that looked like 
a banquet hall. Jim Dailey, the chef, won the gold medal as 
best cook on the river. The dinners he set up were a drawing 
card that assured a capacity load nearly every summer day. 

When the railroad was completed the great treat to wife 
and children w^as a trip via the Olive Branch to the Haven 
and back by train in the evening — an all-day excursion with 
good dinner, beautiful river scenery, the charm of the great 
lake and its wonderful sand dunes. If the weather was right 
some stayed over for a moonlight ride on the lake and an up- 
river return next day. 

River steamers multiplied and prospered until Grand 

60 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Rapids looked like a seaport town. One morning Shantytown 
opened its eyes to find a full rigged sloop snubbed at its dock. 
It had come up on high water loaded with mill machinery. 
Shantytown bubbled over with amazement and prosperity. 
Even the cattails along the outlets lifted high their heads. 

Until the Humming Bird blew up it wintered in the eddy 
near the shipyard. The rest of the river fleet lined up on the 
inside channel from the foot of Lyon-st. to Robards island 
with painters and ship carpenters busy with repairs for the 
next season. 

A Honeymoon on a Raft 

In 1858, Joe Simoneau, my good friend, came out of Flat 
river as captain of a lumber raft fleet. Joe was fond of pea 
soup; otherwise we thought well of him. While getting his 
fleet in sections over the rapids, which required several days, 
he met and surrendered to Juliette LaFlambeau, who was 
pastry cook at the Rathbun House, where her entire time was 
given to the making of dried apple pies and bread pudding. 

Travel from down east was heavy and after the supper 
dishes were cleared away the Rathbun guests danced in the 
dining room. Juliette was a great dancer. Besides she told Joe 
she made good pea soup. What other good things she could 
make €ut a small figure. She eloped with the captain and 
the guests of the hotel were left to the mercy of stewed pump- 
kin for dessert. 

There being no school, with a boy chum I had been help- 
ing Joe and his crew of four French raftsmen pick up stray 
shingle packs that had washed off the rafts while coming 
through the rapids. Joe engaged us to make the journey to 
the Haven, where the fleet would be broken up and loaded on 
schooners for the lakes. We were to take our blankets, shot- 
guns, fishing tackle and canoe and make ourselves useful 
along the way. With shingle packs we built a cabin for our- 
selves at the back end of the fleet. The raftsmen made one for 
themselves on the front and in the middle a fine one all roofed 
over with lumber for the captain and his bride. 

We boys admired Joe for his good sense in getting such a 
prize, for in her pink dress Juliette was as pretty as an apple 

61 



THE YESTERDAYS 

tree in bloom. But she went about mostly in a red flannel 
petticoat, for as she explained, she had taken no time to pack 
her clothes, "and Joe, he would get her trunk and back pay- 
when he returned." 

The raftsmen did all the dangerous work. We boys shot 
the game, caught fish and foraged for fruit, milk, butter 
and eggs, while the bride wrestled with the soup kettles and 
frying pans. A pack of shaved shingles served for plates and 
made good kindling. Knives, forks, spoons and drinking cupa 
were the only things to wash. 

The captain had besides an extra shirt, a fiddle, one of the 
boys a mouth organ and the other ''bones." Juliette played 
a jew's-harp when she was not cooking, and sang a mixture of 
French and English — lacking the proper English she filled in 
with French. 

Everything went well until a head wind tied us up at the 
mouth of Bass river. We were as happy as a flock of black- 
birds in a newly-planted cornfield till we foragers went to 
a pasture and milked a farmer's cow. There was a bull in the 
pasture. We gave him a wide leeway for he appeared not to 
be very friendly and our judgment of him proved correct. 
Unobserved he followed us back toward the raft, where Juli- 
ette was dancing about in her red petticoat. All unannounced 
there came a bellowing from the river bank and as the bull 
charged, everybody in wild alarm made a dash for life. Juli- 
ette ran to the far side of the raft and took a header into the 
stream followed by the bull, but his red flag went out of sight 
in the water and he clambered over to the opposite bank. 
Juliette was fished out of the stream and Joe was so mad that 
he took our shotgun and crossing in a canoe fired three charges 
of bird shot into the brute's hide. 

A few days later the fleet was snubbed at the Haven. The 
captain gave a banquet in the railway dining room that 
was banked up in a sand dune on the north side of the chan- 
nel. A stiff gale blowing drifted every dish full of sand. 
The captain and crew returned to the Rapids by steamboat. 
We boys elected to paddle. We had ammunition and fishing 
tackle, but no money, and needed none. 

62 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Joe and Juliette made a farm up Flat river way and their 
cabin on the river bank became famous for its pea soup. 

Early Council Days 

Baxter in his history of Grand Rapids says: "The common 
council room was erratic in its wanderings." In 1853-55 it 
was the office of Recorder Bement, in the Taylor building at 
the foot of Monroe-st. The entrance to the council room was, 
by the way, a narrow outside stairway running from the 
sidewalk through the floor of a balcony. On one occasion this 
balcony became overloaded with people and gave way, carry- 
ing the stairs with it. 

The council was to meet the following evening and the 
clerk, Peter R. L. Pierce, was on hand early, as was his habit. 
Taking in the situation he procured a light ladder and mounted 
through the window into the council room. When the alder- 
men arrived Pierce stood peering complacently through his 
gold bowed spectacles and blandly invited them up, having 
thoughtfully pulled the ladder in after him. There was a 
scene of much merriment. The city fathers, seeming to be 
impressed with the urgency of their duty as never before, were 
equal to the occasion. They procured another ladder and 
ascended council-ward, followed by many citizens, so there 
was an unusually full meeting that night. I am not certain 
whether Wilder D. Foster or Thomas B. Church was the 
mayor. I am inclined to think it was Mr. Foster, for Mr. 
Church was too heavy to climb ladders and enter through 
the narrow windows of those days. 

Peter R. L. Pierce, the clerk, was the wit of the town and 
I imagine this session of the council was followed by a sym- 
posium. At these annex meetings men could talk in the dialect 
of the street and not be accused of lack of official dignity. 

The aldermen of that time were Dr. Charles Shepard, Mar- 
tin L. Sweet, Benjamin B. Church, E. H. Turner and Dr. 
Phil Bowman. Imagine if you can that body of men coming 
after midnight down a ladder from a window in so crooked a 
locality. As there were no street lights they probably were 
not identified by prowlers as they wended their way homeward. 

63 



THE YESTERDAYS 

Judging from Baxter's history the common council must 
have moved its meeting place every time the rent became due. 
The salary of mayor and alderman was one dollar per annum. 
They were expected to do a lot of work and go to church every 
Sunday. How a man who had spent an evening in a close room 
above a saloon where men cast the dregs from beer mugs on a 
sawdust carpet and smoked Kill-i-kin-ick m clay pipes, could 
fumigate his Sunday suit was often a subject of debate. Mr. 
Pierce, so says tradition, suggested the best way was "move 
out before you move in." This inspired Aid. Bowman to burn 
a cotton rag at the desk of the clerk — at that date the latest 
fad in fumigation. The clerk replied that it might be effec- 
tive in case of smallpox, but he had his doubts when applied 
to the Corners. 

Judge Bement's office was greatly inconvenienced by the 
fall of the balcony, for it was this building that prevented 
Canal-st. going further south and from the balcony he wit- 
nessed the start of many a disturbance and was enabled to 
decide the case before the participants had arrived in court. 

Tradition does not tell what caused so large a crowd at 
court as to overload the balcony and break down the outside 
stairway, but the greatest loss to tha court was the judge's 
renowned meerschaum pipe. He offered a reward for its re- 
turn, but it must have found its way to the river for the In- 
dians reported later finding of many deceased suckers along 
the river bank. 

Little Stories of Old Grab Corners 

All the activities of the town, good, bad, and indifferent, 
centered about Grab Corners in the sixties. There were many 
fine stores and some very good buildings. There were also 
two justice courts, half a dozen dives, two chuck-a-luck 
games, some poker rooms, several basement bars where men 
drank whisky out of tin cups and where it was the rule to 
throw a drunk into the alley, leaving it to the police to come 
along and pound the soles of his boots as a test of life. If 
he kicked they carted him to the lockup, if he did not they 
sent for the coroner. 

64 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Shortly after our return from the war, Bob Wilson and I 
were standing guard at the corners, hating Crawford Bros. 
store with its red, white and blue checkerboard front. We 
called it Joe Wheeler's flag because it made us fighting mad. 
Down Monroe-st. came a farmer driving a yoke of cattle. 
Perhaps they didn't like the checkerboard either, for they be- 
came frightened and ran away, dumping the wagon and con- 
tents upon Mr. Shoemaker, superintendent of the Hydraulic 
Co., who was in a ditch mending a leaky water pipe. Warren 
Mills, the heaviest man in the town, was bossing the job 
and he called the farmer a ''dash fool." The farmer yelled, 
"Well, maybe I am, but I don't like to be told about it," and 
he applied his ox gad to the fat man's legs in a way that was 
scandalous. Mr. Mills was not of a running build and hastily 
found refuge in the Rathbun House. 

One other summer day a farmer came down Monroe-st. 
with a large load of hay. At the comers he unhitched in 
the middle of the road and drove the cattle down to the 
Pearl-st. river bank for a drink. The street was blocked 
from three ways. Teams could not pass so they headed into 
the hay and fed up while their drivers entered nearby places 
to discuss the State of Maine dry laws, which many feared 
might come this way. 

That load of hay was "fed-up" about where the crossing 
officer now whistles his "step lively." If the owner's cuss 
words when he returned could be repeated they would keep 
traffic in line for a week. 

Then came the time when the writer was the foreman of 
No. 3 fire company. An alarm one day brought us to the 
comers, where we found the fire was in the attic of the build- 
ing that blocked the way from Canal to Monroe-st. The 
company being fire fighters, not wreckers, saved part of the 
building. 

That same afternoon we were called back. This time the 
second floor was destroyed. A few hours later it blazed up 
again and it looked as if all we could save would be the cellar. 
About this stage of the game a prominent city official whis- 
pered in my ear that the building was past repair. We fire- 

65 



THE YESTERDAYS 

men took the hint and did not exhibit our former zeal and 
what did not burn was pulled down. 

After this obstruction was out of the way street lines 
were untangled, river channels filled up and ancient land- 
marks disappeared, but the name the corner had acquired 
through long years did not so easily fade away. 

Grab Corners 

As far back as the traditions of the Indians of the great 
lakes country can be traced, the Bow-e-ting — the Rapids of 
the 0-wash-ta-nong — was the land of Manito, the Great Spirit. 
Its charm also appealed to the white man. 

So far as I know Aaron B. Turner, the "Horace Greeley 
of the West", was the earliest resident to trace and color on 
canvas the surroundings and the outline of the first white man's 
cabin. This painting became well known and met the approv- 
al of those pioneers who built and lived in the cabin which 
stood on the bank of the east channel of the river, about where 
the National City Bank building is located. It is now hang- 
ing in the Pantlind Hotel, the gift of Mr. Turner's grand- 
daughter, to mark the progress from the time of the little 
frame cabin that witnessed the first marriage of white people 
in our valley. It was twenty years after this Burton-Guild 
wedding that I came to the Rapids. 

By that time Monroe-st. was a fair country road, slop- 
ing enough to carry away the surface water. From Water- 
loo-st. it assumed the line of a crescent with the river bank 
for back water and Prospect hill for foreground. If the 
north point of the crescent had extended one hundred feet 
further travel would have turned into an alley and been 
swamped in the ponds of Kent. Monroe and Canal-sts. did 
not meet on friendly terms; in fact, they did not meet at all. 
Canal, not so well drained as Monroe, came head on to the 
two-story Taylor building that at long range seemed to block 
the way, but upon close inspection one found that Pearl-st. 
gave an opening to the east over Prospect hill, where the Michi- 
gan Trust building now stands. Beyond was a pond. 

This hill was a ridge of clay and gravel about seventy feet 

66 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

in height that extended north from Monroe nearly to Bron- 
son-st. (now Crescent) and has all been cut away. One 
winter morning as late as the seventies I saw some young 
society ladies sliding down the last of this hill in a wash 
boiler. This was on the Dr. Shepard property, where the 
Young & Chaffee store now stands. They were not conscious 
of a spectator, but I happened to be in the bell tower of the 
fire department that stood nearby. 

To the west, Pearl-st. ended at the east channel of the 
river opposite the north end of island No. 1. Along the river 
bank, stopping in the shipyard, ran an alley on the north and 
with the steamboat wharfs at the south. In this alley the 
storekeepers emptied their waste. Dodging off Pearl-st. in the 
bend was an alley that afterward became the Arcade. 

Not until after the Civil war was the title "Grab" at- 
tached to the corners. The city had grown about this medley 
of roads and until the summer of 1865 nobody thought the 
intersecting streets could be improved. Lieut. Bob Wilson re- 
turning from three years' service found a congenial job as 
reporter on the Daily Eagle. He fixed the term "Grab Cor- 
ners" and all the wit, ridicule and sarcasm of his red head 
was turned on this concentration point of village activity. 

Raising the Grade of Canal Street 

With the building of Pearl-st. bridge in the late fifties 
began the raising of the grade of Canal-st., which up to that 
time was often under water in the early spring when the 
winter snow melted and the ice broke up in the river; some- 
times in the freshet from June rains or even when there came 
a January thaw. Several springs Canal-st. was left strewn 
with stranded logs. 

The street as far north as Bridge was built up with a 
fair class of buildings, but not until 1873 was the grade, 
which put the street above high water mark, completed. In 
the spring of that year the old blocks and stores on Grab 
Corners which had obstructed the straightening of lower 
Monroe had been removed, the first to be razed being the 
Commercial block which had been the center of trade in that 

67 



THE YESTERDAYS 

street for thirty years. Then in May followed the Checkered 
store, the Tanner-Taylor building which had stood broadside 
as a barrier to traffic. 

Shortly after this a night fire burned several buildings on 
either street and left the Lovett block, corner of Pearl and 
Canal, standing alone. At this fire I had a peculiar expe- 
rience. We worked for hours and several times I entered a bed- 
room on the fourth floor of a building on the Canal-st. side — 
which remained untouched by flames, though all about was 
ruined. It was daylight before the firemen left and in the 
final inspection I was impelled to this room again. Everything 
was drenched with water and plaster covered the bed and 
floor, but in the bed sat a wild-eyed child just wakened from 
sleep. She had been completely under the bed clothes on my 
previous trips. I lost no time in depositing her on the hotel 
desk across the street. Before the morning was over this 
building collapsed. 

Sweet's hotel, a four-story brick structure erected in 1868, 
was the best building on the street and in 1874 was raised 
four feet. Hundreds of jack screws were put under it and at 
the signal of a whistle were given a turn. Business weint on 
inside without the loss of a guest or dish and the work of lift- 
ing took but four days. 

It was a busy time when a trainload of jack screws ar- 
rived from Chicago, where they had been raising buildings, 
and all the stores along Canal-st. were lifted from the mud 
to the new grade. There were still a couple of livery stables 
and some blacksmith shops on the west side of the street and 
several vacant lots deep enough to retain ponds of stagnant 
water. Mosquitoes and ague were in evidence and smudges, 
quinine and whisky much in demand. But one or two stiff 
fires about that time, while disastrous, cleared away much 
that was not desirable. 

Ministers used this "great uplifting" as a theme for ser- 
mons, illustrating the power of men who by all working to- 
gether accomplished such great tasks. On the other hand 
many of the stories discovered about that time and still in 

68 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

circulation are as extremely muddy as the clay and marl of 
the river banks from which they sprang. 

Thus the years changed the topography of the city. Pros- 
pect hill, with other wooded knolls, was carted into the lower 
ground. The west part of Sweet's hotel was built over the 
east channel of the river and the islands became a part of the 
main land. The shipyard and its forge disappeared, along 
with the ponds which were the delight of small boys both 
summer and winter. Springs that came out of the hills were 
turned into the sewers and brooks of clear water no longer 
found their way to the river. 

Canal Street Jottings 

Before Canal-st. was brought up to its present grade it 
was bordered by a variety of structures ranging from a single 
story gin mill to a four-storied brick block. 

The roadway, sidewalks and buildings were all in har- 
mony and nothing seemed out of place to the citizen who 
daily passed that way. 

About where the big Heyman store is now, there was a 
large two-story livery and feed barn owned by Isaiah Peake. 
The west end of the barn rested on the canal bank and all 
the rest was on posts over a deep gully that ran between the 
canal bank and the street for some distance either way. 

Capt. Baker Borden built this barn, using walnut, hewed 
from the tree, for all framework and had it not been for 
fires, the building would have lasted a hundred years. Hay 
was unloaded from farmers' wagons standing on the walk and 
pitched through the second floor doors to the lofts above. While 
unloading was going on the passersby walked in the street. 

Theadjoining lots had no buildings for several years and 
a side rail along the plank walk kept people from falling 
into the ravine, which made a convenient place for the barn 
sweepings which, had it not been for the spring freshets, 
would in time have brought the place up to street level. It 
also seemed for some years that there was no other place 
handy for castaway hoop skirts. 

There were also in this low ground, stray logs and stumps 

69 



THE YESTERDAYS 

which refused to burn when the ground was cleared. Con- 
ditions generally caused people to boycott the west side of the 
street. 

Isaiah Peake, the proprietor of this stable, was assistant 
chief of the fire department. He was also constable and had 
many a rough-and-tumble fight with the fellows who insisted 
on sleeping on the hay in his loft. 

In the spring of 71 a fire started in Wilkins Brothers mill 
and extended to C. C. Comstock's mill on the bank of the 
river, jumped the canal and before it was stopped destroyed 
more than a quarter-million dollars' worth of property. 

This fire occurred in the daytime, all the people of the 
city witnessing the spectacle and watching the firemen make 
their desperate fight to prevent the fire crossing Canal-st. and 
sweeping the entire north part of the city. When firemen be- 
came exhausted volunteers took their places. 

Assistant Chief Peake had more than a fireman's interest, 
for all the savings of his lifetime were going. With a single 
line of hose from the steamer Caswell he faced the fire at 
the Canal-st. front of his stable. As Company No. 3 was 
rushed from another position the men saw the assistant chief 
who had lost his footing, with the hose pipe hugged close in 
his arms, gamely holding to the wriggling line, which finally 
carried him off the high walk into the basement. Citizens 
pulled the line back to the canal bank with the assistant 
chief still hanging on. He was rinsed off and after several 
helpings to "refreshments" reported back on duty. 

The great ramshackle barn burned for two days. Th© 
heavy walnut sills with lo-ads of smoking hay and straw fell 
into the bog and smudged mosquitoes for a week. 

To many people this fire was a loss hard to retrieve but 
not so with Isaiah Peake. He resigned from the fire depart- 
ment, but retained the ofiice of constable and became recep- 
tion committee at the popular farmers' hotel across the street, 
where the country men arrived every morning with loads of 
produce and were treated to a drink by way of a start and 
Isaiah collected fifty cents each at night for giving them safe 
conduct to the lockup. 

70 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

The west side of Canal-st., filled in and rebuilt, was much 
better for the fire. 

Echoes of Old Dinner Bells 

You may wonder how I recall so well some of the things 
pertaining to the old hotels. When I came to Grand Rapids, 
an eight-year-old boy, with imlimited demands for food, I lived 
for three years nearly opposite the Rathbun House and still 
retain a memory of the appetizing odors that drifted from the 
kitchen. The Eagle hotel was also near, but the smells less 
alluring. We had pork, cabbage and corned beef at home. 

Our plajT-ground was not beyond the sound of the dinner 
bell of the National. In fact, the meal-time of the neighborhood 
was regulated somefwhat by the hotel bells and when George 
of the Rathbun sounded the alarm it broke up our ball 
game and called in the kites. 

George was a colored man about thirty years old. He must 
have drifted in on the '^underground," as there were few of 
his race here at the time. He rather outdid the bell ringer at 
the National and one time when a concert troupe was strand- 
ed in the town the musical director secured a long, round bar 
of steel from Foster's and at father's forge constructed a very 
clever and musical triangle. This he suspended under the 
wide veranda of the National hotel from a piano wire. 

Thus the National was able to send forth a call more in 
keeping with its delicious chicken pie. Moreover the breakfast 
call did not awaken all the babies in the neighborhood. But 
Capt. Shoemaker of the Rathbun was a progressive spirit and 
startled all the street by supplying George with a gong half 
as large as a washtub. There was no veranda at the Rathbun 
House, but George was equal to the occasion: a few bangs 
at the gong, then "roas' beef for dinner" — bang! ''Taters and 
gravy," bang — bang! Then a few juba steps to several slight 
taps before the dessert was announced. But the great event 
was chicken dinner. Then the small boys took to the gutter 
and George gave a near minstrel show. 

The National acquired one summer a colored cook who 
came by the underground route from Tennessee with his 

71 



THE YESTERDAYS 

weather eye out for Canada. It was rumored the United 
States marshal was watching to take him back to Dixie. 
The boys were much in sympathy with the runaway — 'they 
liked his biscuit — and while waiting for the government offi- 
cial they practiced throwing stones at a mark. 

Steel's Landing (Lamont) on the river was a station on the 
underground. One day a man with a soft hat and long whis- 
kers took passage at the Haven for the Rapids. At Steel's 
Landing several farmers came aboard and when near Blendon 
Hills the stranger fell overboard. Swimming seemed to be 
good and Bob Medler, the pilot, did not slow up. Walking 
was not obstructed on the underground that night and the 
National lost its cook. 

Capt. Shoemaker and his wife of the Rathbun House were 
among the very popular hotel people of a day when it meant 
something to be landlord and landlady, when the guests of 
a hotel were treated .Uke guests of a home. Of course they 
did not become millionaires, but in their day people did not 
live entirely for the accumulation of nervous breakdowns. 

Canton Smith, landlord of the Natio-nal, used to tell the 
story of a man who was worth $4,000. He was so blooming 
rich that he ordered chicken pie for dinner every day. Din- 
ners cost fifty cents, no tips. Once a down east boob left a 
half-dollar at the side of his plate and the waitress slapped 
his face. 

In 1866 T. Hawley Lyon, at the time landlord of the Rath- 
bun, entertained the survivors of the 21st Infantry. It was 
our first reunion and it is doubtful if ever a banquet table in 
the city was so perfect in its flowers and food. That night 
many of us made our first acquaintance with celery. We 
really had to be introduced to the stranger, standing leaves 
and all in a tall vase. With comrades from all parts of west- 
ern Michigan, music, dances and speeches, the affair did not 
close until sunup. 

The 3rd Michigan Infantry boys were also served a won- 
derful banquet and how grateful the people were to Hawley 
Lyon and his charming lady, who were made honorary mem- 
bers of both organizations. 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

The National Hotel, the Site of the Morton House 

Both tradition and history tell of a hotel built on this site 
in the year 1835, the Hinsdill House, a two-story frame 
building with a ballroom on the second floor. Four years later 
this was bought by Canton Smith, who renamed it the Na- 
tional and conducted it until it burned in 1855. 

It was replaced by a four-story frame building painted 
white, with green blinds, which in turn burned in 1872. It 
was the ''uptown" hotel for many years. By this remark I 
do not mean to cast shadows upon the other hotels of that 
time, they had a rating as do the hotels of today, but nearly 
all of the overland travel until 1858 came in over the Kala- 
mazoo plank road by stage. Turning the comer of Division 
and Monroe streets the National was the first hotel. 

And just a word about those Concord stages which had a 
nation-wide fame. The few remaining ones are traveling about 
the country today as curiosities with the circuses and wild 
west shows. There were relay points along the route where 
change of horses was made. Four and often six horses were 
used and were selected for their traveling qualities. The 
crack of the whip, the blast of the long tin horn, the high- 
headed horses plastered with foam and mud were enough to 
stir the blood of any boy. 

Although the ride was through forests and along the shore 
line of lakes, and dinner stations served roast wild duck and 
squirrel pot pie, the passengers after a fifty-mile ride in a jolt- 
ing, swaying, cramped-up coop, were glad to clamber down 
from the top or out of the crowded seats and find rest in the 
hotel. It was such a home-like place and the hand that the 
landlord extended was so cordial that few of the travelers 
sought any other place. 

The wide verandas with their chairs on summer days, the 
great fireplace with its blazing logs in winter were the best 
welcome the city could give. Men gathered about the fire 
and smoked their pipes and the ladies came and listened to 
stories or to discuss the events of the time. The firelighted 
circle was the picture of contentment. 

One winter night when the wind whipped the snow and 

73 



THE YESTERDAYS 

sleet into every hangout place for boys, Ned Buntline, writer 
of story books for boys, was a guest at the hotel. Tlie porter 
went out to the shops and streets and gathered in all the boys 
and standing in the firelight with the youngsters sitting all 
about the floor, Buntline told stories of the sea and of ad- 
venture in strange lands with strange people. I was one of 
the happy boys. 

But the finest thing about the old hotel was its landlady of 
blessed memory, who in all the years that her husband, Can- 
ton Smith, was the manager, was his helpmate — a woman 
then in the best years of life with a mother's heart and good 
sense. ''Blessed Mother Smith," she was called. Many a man 
and woman found with her a safe harbor until they were on 
their feet again. The fireplace in the lobby was matched by 
the warmth of the stove in the kitchen on which a kettle of 
soup ever simmered and from which many a bum was fed and 
sent away to the hay in the stables. 

There were no city hospitals or refuge homes — only the 
county house to shelter unfortunate girls from the storm — and 
many a friendless woman was helped up the back stairs to 
the servants' quarters and a bed. The only register of these 
kind deeds is kept in the hearts and memories of those who 
knew "Blessed Mother Smith." 

In the city of New Orleans about that time there was 
another Mother Smith and when she left for heaven the people 
erected in her memory a monument of great beauty, one of 
the glories of that city. Our Mother Smith lives on in the 
heart of many a white-haired man of this town who as a bare- 
foot boy played about the verandas of the old National hotel. 

The Burning of the National Hotel 

The period between 1870 and 1880 was one of many disas- 
trous fires. There were but three companies of firemen, very 
poorly equipped with fire fighting apparatus. The horses and 
their drivers were paid by contract, but most of the men were 
part pay volunteers, the best lot of men to be found in the city. 

The west side company. No. 3, consisted of young business 
men endeavoring to maintain the standing of that company 

74 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

won by years of faithful service in the interests of the com- 
munity. Its standing as a social organization was of high 
grade. Pride and rivalry between the three companies kept 
these men in service. 

While the city was making rapid growth in all lines and 
fire risks becoming greater every day the firemen were held 
down to old methods. The papers of that period were printing 
columns about the brave deeds of firemen in risking life and 
health, but it seemed to the heroes engaged that the common 
council was sleeping over a volcano that would some day rival 
the kick of Mrs. O'Leary's Chicago cow. 

The supply of water as well as hose was limited. Alarms 
were slow in coming in. There were no reserves and if two 
alarms came in about the same time, the second fire must burn 
itself out. 

When the alarm came in from the National hotel on Sept. 
20, 1872, No. 1 company set their engine at a cistern at the 
corner of Division and Monroe. No. 3 found water at the 
corner of Ottawa and Monroe, supplied from the Hydraulic 
pipes. 

The writer was foreman of No. 3 company and when we 
arrived the hotel was a furnace. Chief William A. Hyde di- 
rected our line to a narrow alley between the hotel and a 
brick building on the west, the hope and plan being to con- 
fine the fire to the hotel building. We did not know that this 
narrow v^^alk had no outlet until we had gained the dead end 
at the north, a two-story wooden annex. With a four-storied 
furnace on one side and a brick wall on the other side, the walls 
and roof of the hotel fell and No. 3 was trapped. They had 
a stream of water from a line of hose that could last but a 
few minutes. The pipeman, William R. Utley, turned the 
stream on his comrades, who were trying to break through the 
lath and plaster of the annex walls, though its roof was al- 
ready ablaze. 

There was no panic. George Whitworth, the only man 
who knew a prayer, used the time in wielding an ax. Where 
he found it he did not know and to this day that ax is a mys- 
tery. Every drop of the water coming out of the hose was 

75 



THE YESTERDAYS 

turned on Whitworth while he was chopping the hole through 
which we crawled, one by one, and escaped to the vacant lot 
on the north. There we counted noses and grinned smoky 
grins ; none of us had breath to do more. 

By that time the crowds on Monroe-st. were in a panic. 
Volunteers had uncoupled the hose and put in a new section 
and a stream was turned on the fire where we were supposed 
to be. It had no effect on the mass of fiercely burning pine. 
The strain was relieved when the company reported at Put- 
nam's drug store below the hotel, where their burns were 
coated with linseed oil. 

There were nine west side business men in that party. 
They were not so much concerned with their roasting as the 
fact that a line of hose had been lost. It was a bit of dis- 
grace similar to losing a flag in battle. Moreover they were 
used to leaving by the front door and the idea of a crawling 
retreat hurt their sensitive hides fully as much aa the blisters 
they nursed the following month. 

Among the men beside Utley and Whitworth, were Leonard 
Bradford, Thomas R. Belknap, William Walsh, Anthony Hy- 
dorn, Milo Markham and Charles Swain. 

I recollect no passing that was so universally mourned as 
that of the old National hotel. Its comfort and hospitality, 
the cheer of its fine old fireplace, were known far and wide. 
It was never quite possible to replace the old home feeling in 
the modem structure and the growing town. 

The Public Well 

Some time after the building of the Hinsdill hotel on the 
corner of Monroe and Ionia streets in 1835, a public well was 
dug at the intersection of the streets near what is now the 
Morton House corner. The exact date is not a matter of rec- 
ord so far as I know. 

Tradition has the well forty feet deep, stoned up with field 
hardheads. It always afforded an abundant supply of pure 
cold water. It was protected by a curb and wide standing 
platform ; the water drawn up by a windlass in oaken buckets. 

It is not claimed that the song, 'The Old Oaken Bucket" 

76 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

had its origin here but the well was so popular during the for- 
ties and into the fifties that the old residents may well turn 
to it as they sing the old song at their meetings each year. 

Before digging this well, drinking watter was obtained from 
a plentiful spring that flowed from the side of the present 
Fountain-st. hill and angled across lots into a sluice in lonia- 
st., then open under the veranda of the hotel and into a sluice 
thait crossed Monroe-st. 

When one studies the formation of the hills, valleys and 
trails it is easy to believel that the early fathers selected this 
place as the hub of the wheel about which would center the 
commercial city, but they did not have the foresight to re- 
serve a campus, or circle, which could easily have been done. 
About this location with the first hotel as a start, were built 
'Stables for the stage horses, wagon repair shops, horseshoeing 
and blacksmith shops and sheds for the Concord stages. 

The natural grade of the streiets gave good drainage and 
while the spring furnished an abundance of water it soon be- 
came an open sewer, so this "town well" became a necessity 
and it was one of the busiest uptown places until late in the 
fifties. 

I have no idea who paid for this well and its upkeep, only 
for many years Mr. Wilder D. Foster furnished free of cost 
the tin cups that Mr. Weatherly chained to the curb many 
times each year. Even in those days some people realized that 
if men could get a drink of cool water there would not be so 
many of them running into "tippling" groceries and that a 
public well was a better temperance lecture than "Ten Nights 
in a Barroom." 

Eventually the Hydraulic company began supplying water 
to the business part of the city from the Penny springs, located 
in the rear of where the Logan apartments now stand, on 
Logan-st., between Madison and South Prospect-avs. 

The company also curbed the spring on Fountain hill and 
piped the water into buildings and into the cisterns that sup- 
plied the fire department before the days of hydrants. This 
spring was not far from the school on the hill. When Charles 
W. Garfield was a student there he had but to step out of 

77 



THE YESTERDAYS 

the back door into a forest where the wild flowers, birds and 
squirrels lived. How often did he get permission to go to the 
spring for pails of drinking water, and he tells me how he 
mom-ned when this gift from God was covered over and for- 
ever hidden from sight. 

I do not recall what happened to the town well. To the 
best of my recollection it was filled in when the Morton House 
was built, about 1873 or 1874. But I do know that where I 
paddled my dusty little feet in a running brook in the fifties, 
and stood and leisurely drank my fill from the oaken bucket 
in the sixties, I now stop, look, listen, and then run like a 
scared rabbit for fear of being hit by things I'd never dreamed 
of in those days — and I am just sixty years ahead of the traffic 
officer with his whistle, for I've stood in that very spot and 
whistled my dog from chasing rabbits and ''chickens" in the 
grubs down Shantytown way. 

The Fisk Lake Log Tavern 

From the days of the very first settlers of Grand Rapids 
there was a forest trail from the east which, as years have 
passed, has developed into Robinson road. More people travel 
this road in one hour now than covered the trail in all the 
first year of its existence. 

The Fisk family were among its very first followers and in 
1837 John W. Fisk built a log tavern on the site now owned 
by Ben West. 

The Fisk Lake House, as it was called, was made from the 
timber growing on the high bluffs which bordered the lake. 
Across the road, north from the tavern, was built a log stable 
to shelter the horses of the travelers. 

How welcome the blaze of the great stone fireplace must 
have been to men and women after long miles of travel on a 
rough road, skirting swamps, fording streams or winding 
about the hills through an unbroken forest. 

Can you not imagine this man Fisk as he came from the 
east and looked upon the gem of a lake that for all the years 
since has borne his name? Fisk kept this tavern for two years, 
then engaged in other building enterprises. The two years 

78 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

following James Fosget was the landlord. His ancestors were 
soldiers from France, under Lafayette, during the Revolu- 
tionary war. The girl who afterward became his bride was a 
niece of President Adams and came with her parents from 
the east; the last part of the journey down Grand river on a 
raft of logs and lumber. She was then thirteen years old. 
After her marriage to Mr. Fosget she became the landlady at 
the tavern and was as fine a type of American womanhood as 
the valley ever received, and at least one of her capable 
daughters is living near Grand Rapids at this time. The Fos- 
gets afterward ran the Grandville hotel and their history will 
sometime make a story by itself. 

The log tavern was in time replaced with a brick structure 
and for two years was operated by Jerome Trowbridge, after- 
ward by Napoleon B. Carpenter. If ever a man was born to 
entertain people it was ''Boney" and likewise there was no 
man, woman or child who knew her, that did not love and 
respect Auntie Carpenter. 

Along in the seventies the Fisk Lake House was a great 
resort for saddle men and their ladies. Many of the cavalry 
and mounted soldiers of the Civil war had kept their horses. 
The ladies of that day rode side saddle and wore long, flowing 
skirts, tight-fitting waists, military collars and derby or stiff 
silk hats. They rivaled their escorts in horsemanship and the 
straight stretches of road witnessed many a merry race ; ditches, 
stumps, loads of hay and stray cattle were no obstacle to cav- 
alryman speed. Many a sentimental soul lost his heart 
along the winding Thornapple river road. 

The popular stunt was to stop and leave orders for din- 
ner, then gallop to Cascade, follow the river road to Ada and 
back to the tavern where Pat McCool looked after the horses 
and Boney Carpenter served chicken and the finest steaks that 
ever came from a charcoal broiler. 

Frequently the evening ended with dancing in the upstairs 
ballroom, noted as having one of the finest floors in the city. 
Mr. Carpenter played the ''bones" and set the pace. So here 
is just a word of appreciation for the good old landlords and 
their ladies — ^the Fisks, Fosgets and the Carpenters. 

79 



THE YESTERDAYS 

Fisk Lake and Pat McCool 

When Boney Carpenter took over the Fisk Lake House it 
was quite out in the country. He also took over with the 
tavern Pat McCool, who as a landscape artist, worked with a 
spade. When not terracing the bluffs he was looking after the 
stables or working out the road tax. You will recognize by 
his name that Pat had an inherited dislike for snakes. 

In the swamps between Reeds and Fisk lakes there was 
always a good crop of marsh hay which was cut for stable bed- 
ding, cocked up in the field and left to dry until autumn days. 

There was a log crib bridge over the channel between the 
two lakes and a strip of bog which seemingly had no bottom 
over which a floating bridge of logs had been built. This bridge 
often sunk out of sight over night. You can identify this spot 
now by the fine road bridge bordered on either side by all the 
old junk and scrap iron in East Grand Rapids. 

One of Pat McCool's jobs was to keep this floating bridge 
passable. There was little travel between the lakes but it 
was a public highway and had to be kept open. When Pat 
'hauled in new logs to replace sunken ones he covered them 
with marsh hay which made on sunny days a bed for a great 
variety of crawling things. 

Pat always went out to work with his clay pipe between 
his teeth and a song buzzing through his nose. One morning 
he had gained the middle of the floating bridge before a rival 
buzz warned him that he was an unwelcome guest; a big rat- 
tler disputed the right of way. Pat made a jump that un- 
happily landed him in a wad of water snakes. 

People at the hotel said he came up the hill on wings, his 
warning shouts breaking up a crowd of the best poker players 
of the day. This is a true snake story vouched for by the 
landlady of the hotel. 

When the autumn days came men went into the marsh and 
hauled the hay out on sleds until the loft in the stable was 
filled. Out of one load crawled a big moccasin. Pat was too 
good a man to lose, so Mr. Carpenter himself had to pitch all 
the hay out into the yard, no small task, as he also had a dis- 
like for reptiles, especially at close quarters. 

80 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

During the years the Carpenter's kept the hotel William 
Hentig began cutting and storing ice at Reeds lake. He bought 
from the Belknap Wagon Co. the first real ice wagon made in 
the town. It was drawn by a fine draft horse fitted up with 
about a fifty-dollar harness. 

Pat McCool, stuck on that nice white and green wagon, 
made application to drive, but Mr. Hentig, very positive in 
language — he was a past master at profanity — refused, and 
hired a Hollander, a nationality more to his liking. 

Almost the first trip to the city the wagon with its heavy 
load of ice proved too much for the floating bridge and it 
began to sink. The Dutch driver saved himself by running 
to the hotel for help and Pat was the first man to the rescue, 
but the horse and wagon had disappeared. There was nothing 
in sight but a lot of bubbles floating on a muddy pool. 

I cannot tell you what became of Pat. The last I heard of 
him he was sitting on Hentig's doorstep humming a very com- 
mon melody of the day, *'No Irish Need Apply." It was a 
dangerous thing to do. 

The Site of Hotel Rowe 

Next to Campau Square the Monroe and Michigan-av. 
crossing has witnessed more changes than any other district 
in the city. 

On the river bank in the 50's was David Caswell's wooden- 
ware factory, Hathaway 's edge tool works, several sawmills 
and sash, door and blind factories. A short distance south 
on the canal bank was Squire's grist mill — ^the stone castle — 
copied after a mill on the Rhine, stone walls, gray and drab. 
Only an outside overshot wheel was needed to complete the 
effect. 

This was a factory center with water power. The canal 
and river were full of floating logs, slabs and edgings which 
made, except for the cost of hauling, free firewood for all. 

About the comers sprang up a colony of blacksmith shops 
where everything from horseshoe nails to heavy mill forgings, 
and from wheelbarrows to farm wagons, sleds, cutters and car- 
riages were turned out, mainly by hand labor. 

81 



THE YESTERDAYS 

Germantown might have been a good name for the corners 
about this time. There were Rasch, Heintzleman, Friebig, 
Rathman, Osterle, Schaake, Emmer; with Edmonson, an 
Englishman; Pat Cain, speaking for himself, and Gelock, "just 
over," by way of variety. The king of them all was Charlie 
Hathaway, whose father was one of Washington's generals in 
the War of Independence. 

In the winter evenings the blacksmith shops were open un- 
til 9 o'clock, their charcoal fires the only lights the times de- 
manded. The boys and girls sliding down hill always found 
a cordial welcome in Charlie Heintzleman's shop and the little 
girls had a special seat and corner on the forge. 

Canal-st., now Monroe-av., north of the bridge, was a pil- 
ing ground for pail and barrel staves and the east canal bank 
a line of dry kilns. Boys earned their spending money piling 
staves after school hours. Battles were frequent and Mr. 
Heintzleman would leave his tire setting on open fire on 
Canal-st. and appear with sleeves rolled up, shirt open in 
front, and threaten to drive the whole gang back to Shanty- 
town. Many a man had his troubles settled out of court 
through Charlie Heintzleman's good advice. He was a 
mighty worthwhile friend to young and old — a stalwart, two- 
hundred pound one. 

In time the smith shops were crowded out. A single track 
street car put an end to tire setting and piling lumber in the 
street. The Rasch shop gave way to the Rasch hotel (later 
the Clarendon, and then the Charlevoix) which catered to the 
log runner and mill element. Spike-soled boots made pulp 
wood of the floors; sawdust and sand answered for rugs and car- 
pots. 

Then came the time and rule of the saloon in this locality. 

The river man looking for adventure could count from the 
northwest corner eighteen saloons, most of them with back as 
well as front door entrances and an upstairs annex. 

Fires destroyed the better part of the mills and factories 
and things looked rookery-like and dark, even to the tunnel 
of the old wood-covered bridge. 

But through the years there has been a steady pulling up- 

82 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

grade and now the Hotel Rowe, honoring the memory of a 
grand old citizen, is a monument as well to the efforts of the 
pioneers of the district. As a kindly suggestion to its manager, 
whoever he may be, have the menu printed in English. Indian, 
French, Irish and German have had their day on the corner, 
though a horseshoe might be a fitting emblem by way of good 
luck. 

Shooting Under a Light on the Thornapple 

One autumn day in 1858 I walked with Robert Reed Robin- 
son, ten years older than myself, to the Rix Robinson home 
near Ada, to shine the Thornapple for a deer. The country- 
was being rapidly settled and while the deer were numerous 
they were wild. There were no game laws and deer were hunt- 
ed with dogs at any season of the year. 

There were some sportsmen who roamed the forest not so 
much for the game they could kill as for the freedom and joy 
of the great out-of-doors. Robert Reed Robinson was one of 
them and it was the promise of a night when one's blood would 
tingle 'at the wierd sounds and hair respond to every breath 
from the dark shadows, that called us to the Thornapple. 

Many present-day hunters in violation of game laws 
"shine" with an electric plant on their heads. Had they lived 
in the fifties they would have made, as did the Indian, a box 
with one open side and a hole in the bottom through which a 
candle with a grapevine wick coated with deer tallow and bees- 
wax, was shoved up from the under side as it burned away. 
This box was set on a staff in the bow of the canoe, just above 
the head of the man who was to do the shooting, the shaft 
turning easily to cast the light in any direction. The Indian 
hunter had many devices which were copied by the white man. 
In the autumn the outer bark of the wild grapevine tightly 
wound into balls, the open end lighted and placed in the bow 
of the canoe away from the air draft, burned for hours without 
blazing. When the staff light blew out in the wind the grape- 
vine with a few breaths was in a blaze to relight it — then again 
placed out of the draft. There was also an incense wafted out 
of thiis smouldering bark that killed the scent of man, the dan- 

83 



THE YESTERDAYS 

ger signal to animals. All wild life is charmed by a light. Many 
times have deer faced the headlight of a locomotive, with its 
roar and rattle of cars, till tossed aside. So they stand in the 
water or on the river bank, unless t/hey get the scent of man^ 
their eyeballs of fire making them an easy mark for the hunter. 

That night was my first under a light. Rix went with us. 
I was only a passenger. There was not a word spoken — na 
splash of paddle. Bits of fog lifted from the water and floated 
away, rabbits raced about on the banks, flocks of ducks went 
up with a whir almost from under the boat. At one place two 
men in a skiff with a jack light were spearing bass and pike. 
When we passed Charlie Holt's clearing his waitchdog awak- 
ened the woods. Then we landed and waited for the moon to 
get out of the sky before approaching the big deer lick. It was 
near midnight when we saw two shining balls of fire and then 
the outlines of a doe not fifty feet away, then shortly two fawns 
standing knee-deep in a bunch of cattails. Rix never would 
shoot a doe and how glad I was. But soon two balls of fire so 
startled me that I did not see anything else and the crash of 
Rix's gun nearly sent the canoe over. 

Making a landing a fire was built on the bank and a buck 
hung upon a pole, skinned and quartered and it was full day- 
light before we started down the river. While dressing this 
buck Rix told us an Indian never killed a doe unless compelled 
by hunger. 

It was my first experience and the memory of it has never 
passed. Shooting under a light is an unfair sport but many a 
night in the wild woods of Lake Superior have I "shined" with- 
out a gun and had no end of pleasure. If the boys of today, 
who wish to become acquainted with the wild life of the woods, 
will use a flashlight in the bow of a canoe, with a companion in 
the rear who knows how to paddle, they will find adventure to 
furnish pleasant dreams for a lifetime. 

In 1858 game was still abundant about the Grand river 
valley but people were wasteful of the forest life. Venison 
was served on hotel tables and dried venison was a specialty 
at Bentham's restaurant. The buck we killed that night was 

84 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

divided among our friends in the village and Rix added the pelt 
ito those stretched on the side of his bam. 

Turkey Shooting 

In the fifties there were many sportsmen. Game was 
plenty and nearly every man had a rifle and shotgun. 

The best rifles in Michigan were made by Solomon Pierce 
and his sons, George and Charles. Every part was made by 
hand from the rough material and my father made their forg- 
ings. I was delivery boy from the forge to the gunshop on the 
top floor of a building about where the Boston store now 
stands. Pierce's gim stocks were much more reliable than some 
of the stocks now sold ; there was more oil in evidence on the 
finish. 

Every fall brought great fun in the way of turkey shoots 
and raffles which took place at the homes of the farmers in the 
vicinity. They were usually an all Saturday affair that fin- 
ished with a barn dance in the evening. To the farmer's wife 
belonged the poultry money. 

The shooting was arranged in this manner: at the far end 
of the back lot a pit was dug and in this pit sat the farmer. On 
a bank above him was a box, out of which stuck the turkey's 
head. This was the mark. There were several ranges of dif- 
ferent distances up to eighty rods with prices ranging from ten 
to twenty-five cents per shot. A man put down a dollar for 
the ten shots at thirty rods. Even the little fellow with a 
dollar had the privilege of ten charges with shotgun at the 
old lady's chickens. 

When Jim and Tom Sargeant returned from a shooting 
match at Jenison they brought turkeys for their uncles and 
aunts and all the poor families in the neighborhood. 

My father was some marksman and my older brother so 
accurate that he was limited to five shots for his dollar. If 
our five boys went, it took a one-horse wagon to carry away 
the spoils. 

When it became too dark to shoot, cold roast turkey, bread 
and butter, pumpkin pie and cider were served and the fiddler 
played the hornpipe for the barn dance. 

85 



THE YESTERDAYS 

Not all the men danced, for some of them belonged to the 
church and they spent the evening having a chicken raffle or 
disposing of their surplus shooting trophies. This brought 
about the only chance for ill feeling, some of them always com- 
plaining that they did not get a fair shake at the dice. 

When the Civil war came along there was no trouble in 
filling the companies of Berdan's sharpshooter regiment. Many 
of them carried into service their turkey guns. 

It is said some of those fellows as a joke, whenever possible 
ghot an enemy in the leg. This required two others to carry 
him to the hospital. If the field was open the sharpshooter 
would get a crack at one of the helpers and that called for more 
'helpers and there would be a straggling line of Johnnies going 
to the rear. But in shooting turkeys at any distance it was 
considered a disgrace to wing a bird; heads or nothing was 
the rule. 

The business man of today chases with a club, a ball, which 
from dyspepsia and neglect, has shrunken to the size of a crab- 
apple. He is followed by a boy with more clubs. In the days 
of real shooting a man had nerves and eyes and one of Pierce's 
rifles. He needed no caddie; the bird found the ball. 

I hope this may fall into the hands of Capt. Jesse Clark and 
inspire him to raise turkeys at the rifle range. With some- 
thing worth while to shoot at every man in the battalion would 
get into the game. 

There is nothing equal to the solid satisfaction of having 
a fat turkey hanging from the gun at "right shoulder shift.'^ 

The Head and Tail of the Sturgeon 

As the whale is the monarch of the ocean, so the sturgeon 
was monarch ot the river years ago. In the spring of the year 
it was in the nature of many kinds of fish to come to the ''Bow- 
e-ting" — the rapids — to spawn. At this season it was not un- 
usual to capture sturgeon weighing one hundred and fifty 
pounds and if Aaron Benneway was alive he could tell you of 
one that weighed two hundred and ten pounds. 

All fishing with nets and spearing was done below the dam. 
The walks of Bridge-st. bridge were often lined with people 

86 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

looking at the fish and watching the canoe men spearing them 
in the water below. At night the scene was enlivened by the 
torches of the fishermen who with pitch-pine jacks, set on short 
staffs in the bow of their canoes, lighted up the shallow water 
for many feet about. With a man behind the light and another 
in the stern of the boat, both with heavy two-tined spears, 
they poled up near the dam and then floated back with the cur- 
rent. 

There was one record night when Oscar Blumrich, still with 
us, and Aaron Benneway, long since fishing in the streams ''be- 
yond," went out under a jack light and brought in during the 
night seventy-two of the big fish. 

The sturgeon had a standard commercial value: they 
sold for twenty-five cents, large or small. Some smart French- 
men in Shantytown gathered the spawn, pickled it in salt 
brine and sold it as Russian caviar in eastern cities. 

When properly prepared the fish made tempting food. Farm- 
ers bought them as a change from salt meats. Often a farmer 
would take several and pass them out to his neighbors. To 
dress them they were hung from the limb of a tree and skinned, 
the offal fed to the hogs and the spawn to the poultry. The 
meat wanted for immediate use was parboiled, to extract the 
oil, which was rather offensive, then fried with salt pork — a 
white, flaky fish, very good indeed. If not wanted at once the 
fish was hung in the smoke-house over a fire of chips that drew 
all the oil out and then put in salt for a day before the finish in 
the smoke-house. 

Today we pay large prices for smoked salt water fish not 
nearly so good as the sturgeon. Many people utilized the oil 
of the fish for making soft soap, for in those days it was a poor 
cellar or woodshed that had no barrel of soft soap. Somebody 
always had an iron cauldron and over a fire on the river bank 
the parts undesirable for food were boiled and the oil skimmed 
off the water. 

This oil also made very good lamp oil and was often burned 
in the torches used in night parades and even in the lanterns 
that lighted the streets. In some cases it made the "witch 
lights" that our mothers used ; a simple contrivance of a saucer 

87 



THE YESTERDAYS 

half full of oil and a rag wound around a hickory nut with a 
loose end sticking above the oil. Light this end with a wisp 
of paper started in the stove, for matches were not plentiful, 
and you had a light as long as the oil lasted. I remember my 
mother sewing on trouser buttons and patches by just such a 
light after she had her five small boys tucked in bed. 

Sometimes men who had no tallow to grease their boots 
used sturgeon oil and it was the cause of many family jars 
when the old man came home with cold feet and stuck them in 
the missus' oven to warm. I knew one man who used it for hair 
oil, but he was intoxicated at the time. 

In one thing the sturgeon was a source of joy to the boy. 
In its head was a semi-bone growth that had all the pliable, 
bouncing properties of rubber. The boy chopped this out with 
an ax, whittled it round with his knife and had a ball. He 
wound it up to the desired size with yarn from an old sock. 
This winding required skill that was gained only by practice. 
Then as to the finishing touch — if he could lay hands on an 
old bootleg of split calf or sheepskin in those days, for the out- 
side cover, mother sewed it on — or if he could spare a quarter 
of a dollar he went to Moses DeLong, the shoemaker on Bridge- 
st., and came away with the finest kind of a ball, one that 
would bound clear over the house. 

Men and boys played all the ball games from ''two old cat" 
to hotly contested games that were the big event of the Fourth 
of July celebrations and a boy who could produce a fine ball 
was as happy as a bob-o-link swinging on a cattail in the 
swamp. 

But to get down to the tale of our sturgeon. There came 
from down east a fisherman who had never speared a sturgeon. 
The Daily Eagle said he was the author of popular stories for 
boys and his book name was "Ned Buntline." He made friends 
with Bob Robinson, one of the best canoe men in town, and 
they started out to do the rapids. Buntline watched the In- 
dians standing astride the top edges of their canoes and desir- 
ing all the thrills he tried the same. 

They drew close up to the chute where the water came with 
a rush over the dam, tumbling about in swirls of foam. Ned 

88 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Buntline had been warned not to strike a fish any place except 
close to the head, but when he saw a huge sturgeon he got 
buck fever and struck near the tail. The electric shock that 
came along that spear pole and the rush of the waves sent him 
head first into the cold water. But he was a dead game sport ; 
he climg to the pole and the fish towed him about the channel 
until Robinson got near enough to catch into his trousers with 
the gaff hook and pull him to safety. 

A Fish Supper with the Sons of Temperance 
The Sons of Temperance, an organization for the promotion 
of moderation in all things, especially whisky, occupied a hall 
on West Bridge-st. The entertainment committee planned a 
fish dinner and two of its members, who were experts, volun- 
teered to catch a supply of black bass. The bass were biting 
up river at the big bend so there was no risk in making the 
offer. The volunteer fishermen were Patterson, a well known 
but little appreciated sportsman and Robinson, a tall, hand- 
some, black bearded man, a graduate of the university, who 
always wore a stovepipe hat. 

They borrowed the best canoe on the river and got an early 
start, casting anchor about four miles above the upper rapids. 
Landing two-pound bass was exciting sport and Farmer Jen- 
nings hoeing corn on the bottom lands, heard their shouts of 
joy and after a time invited them to join him in the shade of a 
river bank maple where they smoked a pipe in neighborly way. 
Said Mr. Jennings : 

"The old lady is fond of bass. If you are willing I will 
take a couple to the house and bring back a jug of sweet cider 
I have in the barn. It is not good to drink water these hot 
summer days. I must tell you, I made a lot of cider last fall 
and forgot to put it in the cellar and it froze up. When I 
tapped the barrel all I got was a trickling stream like sap 
from a sugar tree in the spring. I left a cup on the sunny side 
of the bam to warm up a bit and along came a crow and dipped 
in his bill. Then he roosted against the door sill and sang 
like a bluejay. I filled all the jugs I could find and hid them 
away in the basement of the barn." 

89 



THE YESTERDAYS 

So the fishermen joined the good old Irish farmer in what 
he declared to be the dew from which wild bees made their 
honey. Only the lure of the bass could call them away from 
that cider jug and when they finally hauled in the anchor the 
boat had a full cargo aboard. To be sure the silk hat had been 
knocked into the water a few times by the fish dangling from 
Patterson's hook, but they made the pond behind the dam in 
safety. Then Robinson spotted the chute where all the water 
of a busy river plunged in haste. That chute, the puzzle of 
raftsmen, had no terror for the man with the paddle and heed- 
less of warnings from the bow of the boat, he made straight 
ahead. 

In a twinkling the makings of the Sons of Temperance fish 
dinner, with rods, paddles, two fishermen and a silk hat were 
floating down stream in the mad swirls of the rapids. 

Only the canoe and men were salvaged, but the women of 
those days were resourceful. They caught a salt codfish in the 
corner store and with peach blow potatoes and their fixin's the 
dinner was a success after all. 

Winter Sports and Perils 

Before the river bed on the rapids was cleared of its great 
hard-head boulders and narrowed by the west side canal — for 
this canal was a part of the river and its present retaining wall 
is entirely in the river bed — all the water of the river, except 
the small flow that passed down the east side canal, came over 
the dam and spread out in swirls and channels between the 
rocks in a combat for right of way to the foot of the rapids. 

In the winter these great boulders made anchorage for ice 
formations and the entire river surface resembled islands of 
ice with narrow glades of clear water between. 

In long spells of cold even the channels would close up and 
if snow covered the ice the canal gate would be closed and all 
the water coming over the dam flood the ice below and make 
it fine for the skaters. 

Of all the winter sports skating was the most popular and 
there developed many expert men and women skaters. Most 
of the skates were home made. Factory made skates were just 

90 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

finding their way into the hardware stores and were distinctly 
American in style ; short as the boot and blunt in taper, which 
was all right on clear, hard ice. 

When the Hollanders began coming over they brought their 
skates, long in front and gradual taper. They were an inno- 
vation and looked odd, as did the people who wore them. 

Our American girls wore long skirts and trim shoes while 
the Holland girls dressed in short corduroy skirts, heavy wool 
stockings and stout shoes that supported the ankle. When one 
of these girls went down, which was not often, she made a dent 
in the ice, but it was a modest tumble, while the home girl cut 
capers and blushed. 

One winter day when the ice was all islands with narrow 
glades of water dividing them, that in the crisp sunlight looked 
like liquid race courses, the weather was at its best and all the 
skaters in town were out. It was like a carnival, except that 
it lacked the music. 

The islands within safe reach were crowded, but there was 
one large glare place just beyond jumping distance that was 
tempting the daring. A party of Holland girls came down an 
open space like a whirlwind and going into the air one by one 
in their short skirts they cleared the glade and landed safely 
on this island of temptation. 

This challenge was too much for the American boys and 
several crossed successfully and were soon linked arm in arm 
with the rosy cheeked, sensibly dressed Netherland girls. A 
dark haired American girl saw her beau cutting "pigeon wings" 
and doing the ''long roll" with a pretty blonde and she tried the 
jump. When she left the ice her short skate caught in the long 
skirt and she plunged head first into the water with such force 
that she came up under the ice on the farther side. 

In about a minute the crowd was frantic; all except a 
twelve-year-old boy — a ''water rat" — ^they called him, who 
pushed his way through the crowd and followed the girl under 
the ice, where she could be plainly seen floating and being 
carried along by the current. Men yelled and women fainted 
or fell upon their knees sobbing. 

Those who could see said the boy had caught her hand and 

91 



THE YESTERDAYS 

with his feet braced on the bottom was struggling for a place 
in the open. 

It was a Holland girl lying on her face at the channel's 
edge who caught the boy's hand and pulled them out. Men 
brought planks and bridged the glade and the unconscious girl 
was wrapped in blankets and rushed to her home. 

The boy refused to be helped out but waded to the shore 
side of the glade and climbing up to the roadway he hiked for 
the blacksmith shop. Here he was stripped and wrapped in a 
horse blanket while his clothes were drying. He was sitting 
on the forge by the fire surrounded by an admiring crowd 
when a big hearted Irish woman came in with a stew-pan of 
hot soup, saying, "There is nothing like hot soup to drive the 
cold out of his insides." 

That boy had made his own skates. The blades were ground 
out of old mill files and he had worked many long evenings at 
the grindstone. The skates were fastened on his feet with 
buckskin laces. But Mr. Wilder D. Foster, who had a fine 
assortment of skates in his store, sent a pair of the best he had 
as a reward for his bravery. 

In the late seventies there were several winters when the 
ice was unusually good above the dam, mainly because the 
drift ice was held back by the logging booms above the city. 
Hundreds of people gathered for the skating and in the even- 
ings great driftwood fires were built along the shore. On holi- 
days Squire's brass band played and added to the pleasure. 

To skate on Reeds lake in those days simply never came 
to mind. It would have called for a walk of three miles before 
one could have put on skates and was just altogether "out in 
the country." 

The Bridge Street Toll Bridge 

The first bridge crossing Grand river at the Rapids was 
built from funds derived from the sale of a grant of six thou- 
sand acres of land given by the state. This open bridge lasted 
about six years. In 1852, a bridge company was organized to 
build a new lattice work, shingle roofed toll bridge. This is 
the bridge that came within my memory. 

92 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

The lattice work was built of two by ten sixteen-foot clear 
stock white pine, pinned together by stringers of the same 
material at top and bottom. The uprights set at an angle, 
were pinned together where they crossed at top and bottom 
with white oak pins two inches in diameter. The roadway 
was sixteen feet wide and there was a sidewalk of four feet 
each side for foot travelers. The gable ends were boarded up 
and painted in large bold black letters, "Warning. Five 
Dollars Fine for Driving Faster Than a Walk." 

A toll gate keeper's residence was at the west end, where he 
collected one cent from foot passengers, two cents from saddle 
men, three cents for one-horse and four cents for two-horse 
vehicles. 

It was this toll gate penalty that divided the east and west 
side, much the same as Mason and Dixon line divided the north 
and south. This did not concern me personally, for I owned a 
canoe that would float an entire family including the dog, 
and I charged five cents for the round trip. At both head and 
foot of the Rapids in low water, teams could ford the stream. 

Van, the milkman, drove through at the lower crossing 
until east side customers complained of finding minnows in 
the milk. 

During hoop skirt days on those four-foot walks a lady's 
escort either dropped behind or dodged through the lattice 
into the roadway in order to allow another lady to pass. 

Nothing annoyed Mr. Faxon, the toll gate keeper, more 
than the east side young people who promenaded the bridge on 
moonlight evenings. Within arm's length of the toll gate they 
would about face and two cents were lost. 

For about four years the toll gate was the financial problem 
of the town. It might have continued many years more had 
not a fire started in Caswell's mill just at the east end and in a 
gale of wind the flames caught the bridge. Number Three fire 
company from the west side with their machine dashed 
through the blazing tunnel, but stragglers following close 
behind were obliged to jump into the river. 

Peter Schickel and Lewis Martin were two of those who 
saved their lives by a leap into deep, cold water. The entire 

93 



THE YESTERDAYS 

under roof of the bridge was a storage of cobwebs and dried 
sturgeon flies that flashed like gun powder. 

For several months after that fire the east and west side 
were not on social terms. It happened during high water. 
Canoes and scows ruled and even faraway Mackinaw sent 
a fleet of fishing boats, manned by Indians, to help out until a 
foot bridge, that staggered along in the river bed, was built. 

I earned so much with my canoe at the time that mother's 
yellow sugar bowl became quite heavy with copper cents and 
silver shillings. 

The First Garbage Collector 

Everything must have a beginning and to the best of my 
recollection this is how the collection of garbage began in 
Grand Rapids. In the early days nearly every family had its 
own cow, chickens and pigs and they very largely used up the 
household refuse. Not until the 70's did the city authorities 
make a determined effort to keep the hogs and cattle out of the 
streets and when they began zoning the town the disposal of 
garbage became a problem, greatly magnified because nearly 
every voter had livestock of some kind and the aldermen were 
taxed to the limit of their wit trying to please them all. 

The first man to collect garbage had a pig yard on the com- 
mons at the north end of Front-st. He was equipped with a 
small two-wheeled cart with a barrel, drawn by a huge Belgian 
dog. The barrel made a seat for the driver except when it 
was full — then he walked. 

Nearly every boy on the west side had a dog that watched 
for the ''swill cart" and when half a dozen of them, large and 
small, engaged the Belgian there was a riot in the garbage de- 
partment. This man carried a whip and applied it to the dog 
in a way that aroused the ire of the men of the Number Three 
fire company and one day they turned on the man a stream 
that nearly washed him into the next block. 

For some time this man was followed by a trained pig 
which ran squealing behind the cart until the marshal ordered 
his pigship shut up. 

For all this, business prospered until there were three dogs 

94 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

with carts and all the people in the vicinity of the piggery pro- 
testing. Then one day there appeared also from North Front- 
st. a venerable old man driving a lone steer hitched between 
the shafts of a two-wheeled cart and guided by rope lines at- 
tached to its horns. He came from some foreign land and un- 
hindered built a shack of sidings and tin can shingles. He went 
about hatless and often coatless, accompanied by a daughter 
built on solid lines, whom the boys soon named ''Sloppy Ann." 

His piggery was a finishing touch to the atmospheric misery 
of the north end. 

Richard Stack, the city marshal, lived at the corner of 
Leonard and Front-sts. He was supposed to be a peace officer 
but affairs moved very rapidly for a time, of which no official 
record was kept. 

A string butcher bought the pigs of both parties and they 
seem to have vanished over the Alpine hills. Later on in gar- 
bage history when the piggery was located south of town the 
early residents, sniffing the evening odors, sensed the ghost of 
the Belgian dog, Sloppy Ann, and the steer, circling in from 
the dusk, and every owner of a good watchdog had him out 
on guard. 

Kent County's Pioneer Jail 

The county jail from 1852 to 1872 was on Court-st., on the 
west side of the river. I do not remember which was located 
first, the jail or the street. The jailer's wife's sister, the finest 
looking girl in the city, was the only one courted there. 

The jail was a large, imposing barn-like building painted 
Venetian red; the front part a residence for James VanAuken 
the turnkey, and the cell block a two-story affair in the rear. 
There were no reception rooms and since there was no sewerage 
there were no toilets or baths. 

The turnkey often on summer nights led groups with ball 
and chain attachments to the river where their outer black 
marks were washed away in the swirls of fresh water. Each 
cell had a straw tick on a bench, a blanket, and a bucket. 

In the morning the prisoners came out in the yard with 

95 



THE YESTERDAYS 

their buckets and a scrub broom, to pump water from a well and 
make their toilets, each man anchored with ball and chain. 
During the day they cut with buck-saws the supply of four- 
foot maple wood into stove length for heating and cooking. 

Mr. VanAuken was a tall man with a full black beard, an 
eye like an eagle and a pair of jaws like a bear trap. If he 
had worn rings in his ears he would have been my ideal of a 
Capt. Kidd. I like to recall him a few years later, leading a 
cavalry charge through a Tennessee cornfield instead of stand- 
ing guard over this bunch of blear-eyed stragglers. 

Of course once in a while the sheriff brought in a cattle 
thief from up Gougeburg way and that added a bit of excite- 
ment, but no matter how high a man's standing he had to 
clean his own bucket and buck wood until the learned counsel, 
who would look after his interests in the next chapter of his 
life, had time to go to court. 

One summer day there was a horse thief among the group. 
His offence was well toward the top of the list and watching 
his chance he placed the chain of his hobble on a block of 
wood and with one blow of the ax was free to run. Jumping 
the garden fence he was on the road to Canada with Turnkey 
VanAuken in hot pursuit. 

At that time all the west side of the city south of Bridge-st. 
was the Fifth ward. Chester A. Morey was the alderman with 
a salary of one dollar per year. Between pay days he shingled 
barns to meet expenses. From his high place on a roof he 
witnessed the race and scrambling down rushed into the road, 
swinging his arms as though stopping a runaway horse. They 
met head on ; that's all the alderman remembered. Even when 
he came to he had spun around so many times he was dizzy. 
The horse thief made an uninterrupted escape to Canada while 
the turnkey helped Mr. Morey over to the jail to get the stars 
out of his head and repair the disastrous results of fulfilling 
his aldermanic duties. 

The First Sprinkling Wagon 

Thomas Sargeant, one of the early residents, was the own- 
er and manipulator of the first sprinkling wagon and the mer- 

96 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

chants on Monroe and Canal-sts. paid for his service. Judg- 
ing mainly by the memories of my early swimming experiences 
it must have been about 1855 that Mr. Sargeant lived on Wat- 
erloo-st. — now Market-av. — at the corner of Fulton-st. Near- 
by was a large sandy bottomed pond of water, where boys had 
a lot of fun with their toy sailboats and where many learned to 
swim without the help of bathing suits. 

This pond headed in a brook near Baldwin's brickyard, 
located at the present corner of Fulton-st. and Lake-dr. This 
brook ran a wild race between the hills across the Ransom 
woods, now Dudley E. Waters' property, and down State-st. 
on its way to the river. 

Before it was lost in the big stream it rested awhile to play 
with the boys. When all the other early day swimming holes 
are forgotten there will still linger in the memory of many 
granddads the happy hours spent in Sargeant's pond. 

Mr. Sargeant had grownup twin boys. They were so near 
alike that he could hardly tell them apart. He also had a pair 
of horses that were the pride of the town. 

When the dry summer days came, dust on Monroe and 
Canal-sts. drifted into the stores to the great damage of the 
stocks of goods. So about 1857 the merchants induced Mr. 
Sargeant to sprinkle the streets. He built a watertight square 
box, with a trap door on the top and a sprinkler spout at the 
lower back end, and with a valve operated by means of a 
piece of rope. 

I have watched him many times as he backed down into 
the river at the foot of Fulton-st. and filled the tank with buck- 
ets, taking much more time and hard work than to sprinkle it 
out on the street. Later Butterworth & Lowe put in a force 
pump which filled the tank and was a great help for Canal-st. 
sprinkling. 

For many years the street sprinkling remained in the Sar- 
geant family, their tanks growing from this primitive one 
to the best modern equipment and their horses the finest in 
the city. 

In the fifties sprinkling Canal-st. was a tough proposition. 
When the logs and stumps were put out of the way there was 

97 



THE YESTERDAYS 

nothing this side of China to which a man could anchor in 
rainy weather and after a few days in the sun the mud turned 
to drifting dust. Lumber being plenty the roadway was 
planked with two lengths of eight-foot clear stock pine, which 
in a short time was standing on edge or end. The Sargeants 
through their years of service must have sprinkled on that 
street everything in the way of pavement from lumber to 
cobblestone, cedar block, pine block, cement and asphalt. 

The city did not take over the sprinkling job until it had a 
water system of its own and even then some of the Sargeant 
family were employed. The first water pressure we had was 
put in by C. C. Comstock. He had a line of wooden pipes 
running from a reservoir on the hill to his pail factory on 
Canal-st. 

The Police Patrol 

In the smoke of boyhood memories I see the village mar- 
shal doing the scavenger work of our frontier town almost 
unaided. The city jail was on the west side of the river and 
Bridge-st. had the only bridge crossing the river. To the mar- 
shal it was a village of magnificent distances, for his chief 
source of supply was from Waterloo, Monroe and Canal-sts. 

The men who built the plank walks on these main streets 
graded them on the high, low, jack plan. Going north on 
Canal-st. one went up three steps in grade in order to enter 
the "tippling" grocery of John Davis, then down two steps to 
reach the level of Dikeman's watch shop. So it was all the 
way to jail. When the marshal encountered game in Shanty- 
town that was not shot in the legs he locked arms with the vic- 
tim and hopped, skipped and jumped to the calaboose. If the 
victim's legs proved unreliable he was loaded into a wheel- 
barrow of the garden variety and at the ups and downs of 
the walk lifted by the heels. 

Later an Irish buggy — or railroad wheelbarrow — came into 
use and still later the city council bought a two-wheeled hand- 
cart that could be pushed in the road. As business increased 
the marshal was permitted to hire any convenient dray at not 
more than twenty-five cents a trip. The two-wheeled French 

98 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

dray with the hind end dipped low was the popular kind. It 
was no great sin to get drunk then, but an 'elluffa joke to go 
to jail on a French dray. 

As civilization and the lumbering days advanced constables 
were appointed to help the marshal. These guardians of the 
peace, armed with a club, pounded the soles of an inebriate's 
boots as a test of life and to determine whether a stomach 
pump or the coroner should be employed. 

But in the words of Uncle Jasper "the world do move" and 
we jumped from a "twenty-five-cents-a-trip" dray to a thou- 
sand-dollar patrol wagon with matchless team of thorough- 
breds. I can see the street in a fever of excitement as the brass 
trimmed chariot dashed through, its gong clanging, its bright 
buttoned driver leaning far out and urging on the best pair 
of horses that money could buy. For the moment business 
on the street was suspended, dentists dropped tools into their 
patients' mouths and ran to the windows, clerks in the stores 
found their way to the sidewalks to see "Black Maria" with 
its load of hard cider or ''Milwaukee champagne" deadheaded 
to the station. Having arrived the passenger was dumped out 
on the floor and those horses which had saved the town were 
rubbed until they shone like silk. 

Next morning the cause of all this celebration looked and 
felt like a battlefield. The judge said "six cents and costs." 
The clerks figured no overhead. I see in the smoke of memory 
one fellow who made this triumphant journey so many times 
that if overhead was counted he would owe the taxpayers 
enough to build a schoolhouse. 

After some years police headquarters was established on 
the second floor of a building on the corner of Monroe and 
Ionia where the Grand Rapids Savings bank now stands. 
For ten years it was the unwelcome neighbor of the uptown 
hotel. Grab Corners, as a matter of economy and by all the 
laws of gravity of a wide open town, would have been a better 
location. Headquarters was accessible only by way of a nar- 
row stairway that unfortunates as well as the officials termed 
the "misery trail." 

James Moran was chief of police with a force of eight men, 

99 



THE YESTERDAYS 

the bravest lot of scouts to be found in the city. One of them 
arrested a drunk at the Detroit & Grand Haven depot, then in 
the north end — "Coldbrook," for short. He fought the officer 
every step of the way to the station and up misery trail. Said 
the judge: "Officer Conlon, what is this man charged with?" 

''Drunk, your honor." 

"But," said the judge, "he is not drunk." 

"Well, your honor, he was drunk when I arrested him two 
hours ago." 

Chief Moran was formerly a river pilot. During the Civil 
war he served as pilot on a Mississippi gunboat. He wore a 
full black beard, was a man of dignified ways and great deter- 
mination and if he had been properly supported by the city 
council would have had a ground floor lockup somewhere off the 
main street and better sanitary conditions for the prisoners. 

Street Lights 

Grand Rapids' people did not vote on daylight saving back 
in the fifties. They used all the daylight there was and longed 
for more. In those days, girls were never seen on the street at 
night without an escort and boys were supposed to be in bed at 
nine o'clock. It was always nine until ten, but after that hour 
any boy caught on the street needed a good excuse for being 
there. 

When it became dark, merchants hung lanterns outside 
their stores and people who traveled about carried lanterns 
with them. Prayer meeting night at the old church, on the 
bank of the river, found almost as many varieties of lanterns 
outside as there were kinds of people inside. 

It was quite the proper thing for a beau seeing his girl home 
to use his unemployed arm in carrying a lantern. Lamps filled 
with sperm oil or any kind of fish oil and tallow candles were 
used in the homes. I am not sure what the "burning fluid" was 
made from that came to take the place of the candles and fish 
oils. Some people said it was imported from Hades. The lamps 
often exploded, giving employment to doctors and the fire de- 
partment. 

You will find specimens of the lanterns used at that time 

100 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

in the museum or in the attics of old homes. Not long ago the 
writer was in the sitting room of one of the popular suburban 
hotels and over the fireplace there was hanging a nest of an- 
cient candle molds. A young city woman present said she 
thought it was a relic unearthed from a nearby Indian mound. 
I did not explain that it might have been a part of her grand- 
mother's kitchen outfit, for in pioneer days all the candles 
were made at home and the lighting problem was a serious 
one with the mother. 

In Wilder D. Foster's tin-shop candle molds were turned out 
as rapidly as Ford's Eliza Janes now are. There was no 
change in style ; it was quantity production that counted. But 
in lanterns there was a chance for the smith to show his skill. 
There was one design that, with a candle inside, threw out 
rays of light to rival an eighteen-carat diamond. It was made 
of tin with conical top and punched full of holes like a nut- 
meg grater; the idea was to let out the light without casting 
shadows. Then an artist invented a square tin frame and put 
glass windows in it and that was followed by all glass globes. 
Mr. Foster also sold candle snuffers for clipping off the ends 
of burned wicks. They were made somewhat like a pair of 
shears, except on one blade there was a box into which the 
clippings fell. Once I was spending an evening with Billie 
Westerhouse; a German boy friend, when his mother could 
not find the snuffers. The light was so poor that his father 
gave up trying to read his paper and called, "Well, Billie, 
come and pull off mine boots and I will go to bed. I have 
some leetle grabble stones in that boot all day.'^ Billie strad- 
dled the boot and with the help of the other boot against his 
hips he pulled off the clumsy footwear — and out fell the 
snuffers. 

Later came the days when candles were made in factories 
and sold in the stores and every home had a lighted one in the 
window at night. 

It was in the fifties that the city first afforded street lights. 
Cedar posts were set up at street corners with a sperm oil 
lamp at the top. They were lighted at dark by the official 
lamplighter who went about with a short ladder. At 11 

101 



THE YESTERDAYS 

o'clock he made another round to blow them out. The coimcil 
had to increase his pay he wore out so many trouser seats 
scratching matches on windy nights. There was a contention 
about the need of illumination on moonlight nights. 

It was not until 1857 that a gas plant was completed and 
several stores on Monroe-st. were lighted. Although it was a 
November night when this was first tried out many people 
who had never before beheld a gas light went down town and 
gazed with wonder at the new luxury. Some old timers doubt- 
ed the wisdom of the change. It was like shining in opposi- 
tion to Providence and the moon. The city council studied the 
almanac and in contract for street light cut out moonlight 
nights and lights after 11 o'clock. The city did not save much, 
for the old lamplighter had the habit of blowing out the blaze 
while the gas meter remained on the job. 

Between the fellow who blew out the gas and the coal oil, 
camphene and burning fluid explosions it seemed for a time 
that the good old sun and moon and Deacon Pengelly's ser- 
mons were the only reliable lights along the pioneer's path. 

Near the end of the nineteenth century electric lighting be- 
came universal — so when you contrast our streets at night 
with those of your granddads some of you at least will feel 
glad that you did not live in the good old days. 

Historic Railway Station 

There is one historic building still standing in Grand Rapids 
which will not be forgotten by old residents but is liable to be 
overlooked by present-day people and that is the old Detroit, 
Grand Haven & Milwaukee railroad station in the north end. 

In the year 1858 the first railroad train came rumbling 
through the hills from the east, the heavy down grade making 
it possible to reserve steam enough to blow the whistle in long, 
triumphant shrieks. 

I remember this event so well, for half the pupils of the 
schools were there to welcome it and the teachers were busy 
the next day with the ruler on those who brought no written 
excuse for absence. 

I do not know which came first, the train or the station 

102 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

house, but the depot is still on the job despite the ravages of 
time and fires. It is about twenty-four by fifty feet and hav- 
ing had several coats of paint during the last sixty-five years 
is still in a good state of preservation. 

In building this road the line of least resistance was fol- 
lowed by the engineers and that is why the depot was located 
at the extreme north of town. After many years the Grand 
Trunk railroad built a spur track and its present fine station 
down town. Probably as a matter of sentiment the old struc- 
ture has been allowed to stand. It was so dear to the hearts 
of the traveling public. It seemed all the outgoing passenger 
trains departed before daylight and those arriving came after 
sundown and before the days of the street car (1865) the trav- 
elers rattled over the combination of river-bed stone, gravel 
and then cobblestone in a yellow omnibus or tramped upper 
Canal-st., which for many years was the white man's warpath. 

Night trains ran on a regular behind time schedule and the 
men hovered over the old heater stove and used the floor for 
a cuspidor while the women curled up disconsolately on the 
wooden benches. 

In the northwest corner of the waiting room was a lunch 
counter, where "slush and sinkers" were served. When those 
good old-time Scotch-Canadian conductors went through the 
train announcing, ''Grand Rapids, twenty minutes for supper," 
everyone on the train who was not so fortunate as to have a 
limch with him made a rush for the counter. The waitress 
was there providing she had not been driven off by an invad- 
ing army of cockroaches. If she had survived, the compliments 
on the food she served usually finished her. 

The only persons who really enjoyed the Coldbrook depot 
were the Burr Watrous log runners who gathered there from 
Flat river points, armed with peavies. They speared the sink- 
ers from the counter with their picks and their boot spikes 
made the floor a frazzle of pine slivers. The benches and door 
frames were a mass of hand carving. Soft pine is so attractive 
to the average jack-knife. 

This lonely place was almost as interesting as a circus 
when the trainloads of emigrants came in and shouldered their 

103 



THE YESTERDAYS 

calamities for a two-mile walk to Waterloo-st., where they 
found wagons in which to continue their journey to the Hol- 
land colony. 

Through this avenue came many of our statesmen to at- 
tend the political meetings of the day. They were met and 
escorted down town by hundreds of mounted men, lines of 
carriages and bands of music; sometimes by torchlight pro- 
cessions. James G. Blaine received as great an ovation as 
any one I now recall. 

When the last soldiers came home in 1865 they were met 
at the old depot by all the town. There was no order to the 
reception. The mothers, sisters and sweethearts clung to boy 
and uniform and laughed and cried by turn all the length of 
the two-mile trail. Above all the hubbub and joy of that 
march I can still hear the voice of my little brother demanding 
that I go and give old John Winters, an English shoemaker, a 
licking for being disloyal. But I had had all the fighting I 
wanted. 

Fifty years ago a ten-thousand-dollar depot, with a canary 
bird or two by way of variety of animal life at the lunch coun- 
ter, would have put the north end on the map, but the order 
has been reversed. The homes, factories and business trav- 
eled out to and far beyond the shoddy little structure dignified 
for so many years by the name, Detroit, Grand Haven and 
Milwaukee depot. 

West Bridge Street, 1858 to 1891 

West Bridge-st. from the earliest days was an important 
highway. In the spring of 1858 unusually high water in the 
river, backing up through the lowlands, flooded the street from 
Turner to Stocking. I poled my large canoe for the accom- 
modation of the public nearly five blocks, fare two cents. 
There being no competition as much as one dollar was earned 
some days. At that time there were few buildings on the street. 

Down Stocking-st. came James Rogers, driving his father's 
oxen hitched to a farm wagon. He objected to the fare and 
started to drive through. Uncle George Barker, who had a 
farm on Bridge-st. near the hill and always came to town with 

104 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

a pocketful of apples, because he would rather give them than 
have the boys coon them, and Uncle Billie Stocking, who 
owned the farm at the end of Stocking-st. and whom everybody 
loved, were waiting to ferry over. They advised Jim to chain 
the cattle to a tree and get into the canoe. 

But Jim used the gad on the oxen and about half way over 
the water was in the wagon bed, the cattle almost swimming 
and Jim sitting on one edge of the wagon box with feet raised 
to the other side. Then one front wheel dropped into a hole 
and Jim went backward into the flood. He did not come to the 
surface. The frightened cattle headed for dry land, the canoe 
turned back and Uncle Billie Stocking pulled Jim aboard. He 
had bumped his head on a wagon wheel as he fell overboard. 

A few days later Mr. Barker came to dad's shop with a 
copper cent, which Jim had given him to pay his canoe fare, 
saying as he had ridden only half way I was not entitled to 
full fare. Dad said he paid too blank much, but Mr. Barker 
drilled a hole in the coin and with a long spike nailed it on 
the bow of the canoe as a mascot. 

Thirty-three years after the flood Bridge-st. was above high 
water and paved with Hallwood block. The city will never see 
the like again, a pine block on a sand foundation. It did 
not last long enough to collect the tax for its cost, but what a 
glorious time the west side folks did have when this pavement 
for seven blocks was opened to the public on Aug. 29, 1891. 

At. White may not be guilty, but I'll give him credit for 
this report of the opening, in a morning paper : 

"West Bridge-st. was a magnificent spectacle last night 
seen from the hill on East Bridge-st. 

"It looked like a mass of solid light. Jubilant in the pos- 
session of a pavement at least second to none in this city or 
any other, the property owners along that thoroughfare had 
spared neither trouble nor money to make their celebration a 
glorious one, worthy of their street and its cost. 

"Thousands of Chinese lanterns crossed and recrossed the 
street in two zigzag lines while thousands more adorned the 
fronts of the business blocks and were strung along the out- 
side of the sidewalks. The effect was dazzingly, superb! 

105 



THE YESTERDAYS 

From the roofs of the buildings which line the street Roman 
candles were shooting forth their balls of many colored fire 
and rockets soared among the stars in every direction. Crim- 
son lights shed their bright refulgence upon the scene and added 
to the general splendor. In its entirety the scene was one 
which will long be remembered by those who gazed upon its 
glories." 

There was a lot more but the procession must not be de- 
layed. 

A line of bicyclists. 

Detail of Pohce. Lieut. Hurley. 

Malta Castle band. 

Carriages, city officials. 

Polish band. 

Company I state troops, Capt. Ed Bennet; Company B 

state troops, Capt. John Kromer; Company K state troops, 

Capt. Lampert. 

Marshal of the day 
The Hon. Aid. Doyle. 

Mr. Doyle was mounted on a spirited horse. Over his shoul- 
der, crossing his breast and about his waist a brilliant red silk 
sash. A high silk hat and white gauntlet gloves also featured. 
A sea of young humanity fell in behind the marshal, separating 
him for a time from the line. 

There were three speakers' stands and upon one of them 
were Mmes. Lydia Harrington, Elmira Wheeler Dishman, 
Emily Burton Ketcham, Elizabeth Roberts Watson and Sarah 
Ann Davis, pioneer white pupils, who attended the first school 
in the locality. 

They related things of school days and I had the pleasure 
of telling of canoe days and thinking it all over quite agree 
with father when he said the copper cent was too blank much. 

Pearl Street Bridge 
From Baxter's history of Grand Rapids a brief outline of 
the building of this bridge is taken: "A wood truss with lat- 
tice work between the roadway and the footwalks on either 

106 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

side with shingled roof — completed in the fall of 1858. This 
spanned the main channel of the river. The island and east 
channel were filled in to make a high embankment which 
brought the bridge and roadway to the grade of Monroe and 
Pearl-sts. It was a toll bridge until 1873, when the city bought 
it, and was for those days a fine structure which aided in the 
development of the west side." 

Recollections of the toll gate at the west end may rob 
some persons of pleasant memories of the bridge, but not those 
who as young folks made it a happy trail on moonlight even- 
ings. 

The writer did not spend much time with the girls, but 
some other fellows a few years older did. The walks were 
narrow and when couples met the young men had to drop back 
or climb through the lattice to the driveway. 

There should have been an ordinance giving ''Shantytown" 
the south and Kent the north walk. If one had been in force 
Pat Shields would not have found reason to throw LeGrand 
Pierce of Kent over the railing into the river channel. Le- 
Grand's girl was game and she met him as he waded out on the 
island below. 

In the clearing up of the Mission land on the west side 
William Hovey reserved a grove of oaks not far from the old 
bridge and with benches, swings and tables made good picnic 
grounds. Hovey 's grove was a fine place, but to get there 
every one had to pay toll. It cost an east side fellow four cents 
for a round trip with his girl. The gatekeeper was usually 
an old man, with wornout legs and foot races were common 
affairs. The girls in their balloon skirts were at a disad- 
vantage on windy days and they could not jump through the 
lattice into the driveway, but the stockholders were hunting 
dividends and the life of the gateman was as bumpy as a cordu- 
roy road. 

When the boys returned from the south in 1865 the town 
wanted to show its gratitude so a Fourth of July dinner was 
planned. The only place in town to set a table of sufficient 
length was on Pearl-st. bridge. The cobwebs and dust of six 
years were swept into the river and two long rows of tables 

107 



THE YESTERDAYS 

placed from end to end of the driveway. They were loaded 
with all the good things the country and city afforded, roast 
pig, turkey, duck, chicken, cake, pie, jellies and preserves and, 
would you believe it, beans, beans, beans, rations enough to 
feed an army corps. 

But how to get this to Sherman's ^'Bummers," Sheridan's 
"Jayhawkers" and Grant's "Mudsills" and keep it away from 
the home guard, had not been planned. Before noon the 
streets at both ends of the bridge were crowded and nearly 
every soldier had brought his family or his best girl. The 
guards found it hard to draw the line. I was a Mormon my- 
self and came with two sweethearts. 

Sam Mapes from up Rouge river came with his wife and 
family. Sam had the countersign but it did not pass the moth- 
er and squad of young recruits. He was, however, equipped 
with canteen and haversack and being the champion forager 
of Company B, 21st Michigan, he fed up and came back 
with rations for five days — some bits of everything on the 
tables except beans, including a roast pig that had not been 
carved and a hat full of cookies. I was not so slow myself and 
with my sweethearts had a dinner, seated on the grass in 
Hovey's grove. This homecoming was long remembered by 
the soldiers of the Civil war and by the citizens who planned 
and conducted it. I always thought those soldier boys paid 
more attention to the happy, daintily dressed waiters at the 
tables than they did to the pie that mother made. Fellows 
of my company surrendered unconditionally. The tables 
cleared away the couples tried to dance on the rough roadway. 
They foimd more pleasure talking to the moon that lighted 
Hovey's grove. 

County Fair 

In the year 1849 the farmers west of the village of Grand 
Rapids, made an exhibit of their products in an abandoned 
cornfield near the west end of Bridge-st. bridge. The ground 
is now occupied by the street railway barns. This affair was 
a success, and the farmers under the direction of Samuel West- 
lake of Walker township, formed an association mainly for 
mutual service among the widely scattered settlers. 

108 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Mr. Westlake, a finely educated man who practiced what 
he preached, was a power in the valley and under his super- 
vision, annual fairs followed. 

People from both up and down the river came in boats and 
those away from the water, with their wagons and in the 
saddle or on foot. 

Premiums amounting to thirty-one dollars were awarded. 
They were made up by donations dropped into a box on a 
table imder the wide spreading branches of the Council Pine. 

Some years later the court-house square, now Fulton-st. 
park, was used as the fair grounds. The court building made 
an exhibition hall for art — mostly patchwork quilts and bed- 
spreads — and agriculture. The live stock was chained to the 
trees or tied to the fence. 

I well remember this fair. There were boys' footraces, 
wrestling and jumping matches and ball games in which the 
captains chose sides, the village against the country boys. 

In 1855, the block on the west side of Division-st., north of 
Wealthy, which had been farmed and was at the time used for 
pasture, was taken over for fair grounds. Sheds were built 
and entrance gates erected. 

Division-st. was well graded and made a fine race track 
open to the public. Not much better racing has been put up 
than that which Barney Laraway and Sol Wright conducted 
every afternoon during the fair. A three-year-old with a bare- 
foot boy astride a sheep pelt saddle, cheering his colt while 
switching him far back with his swinging hat, as he came 
streaking out of the dust, gave one more thrills than all the 
mile-a-minute races ever staged. Bets ran high and furious, 
but the races were on the square. There were no put-up jobs 
and no stop-watches. The colt that arrived first won. 

We did not realize then that men and boys were training to 
ride a few years later with Custer and Sheridan, and that Mor- 
gan pure horses were being bred to mount the Second and 
Third Michigan cavalry. "Rienzi," Sheridan's famous horse 
of history, was one of six hundred other Morgans raised by 
country boys in Western Michigan. 

Admittance to the fair grounds was twenty-five cents. 

109 



THE YESTERDAYS 

Those who were short of the quarter could climb the fence, 
but could not escape the wizard oil man, the soap peddler, or 
the prize package man who gave a shoe box full of jewelry 
for a wildcat dollar. The hot dog man had not yet arrived in 
the community. 

The furniture exhibit at this fair consisted mainly of rock- 
ing chairs and cradles, which had ready sale as wedding pres- 
ents. Deacon Haldane exhibited a two-story four-post bed 
with a trundle bed beneath to be pulled out at night for the 
children. This bed was made by hand at the bench. 

George Pullman, later of Pullman car fame, another fine 
workman, exhibited the Boston rocking chair. There are some 
of them in the city to this day. Mr. Pullman, like most men 
of the time, was always hard up but never refused to pay the 
groceryman in trade from his work bench. 

The great event of the fair, the giving of premiums, came on 
the third day. About this time Squire Philander Tracey's 
cow did not come home for milking, and after considerable 
search he found her in the fair grounds wearing a blue ribbon. 

George Pullman had collected the premium — three dollars. 
The scrap that followed caused as much excitement as the 
races. Bets ran about even as to whether the cow jumped the 
fence or came through the gate. 

In the end, Squire Tracey led his cow home and George 
Pullman kept the premium. Being flush, everybody called 
on the cabinet maker for something on account. If there had 
been a railroad here at the time Pullman might have remained 
with us, but while working long hours with his back to the wall 
he may have had a vision of the city across the lake which 
impelled him onward. 

The success of this Division-st. fair encouraged the pur- 
chasing of forty acres of ground just south of the city, Hall-st. 
being the north line in later years. Sheds and buildings were 
built and these in 1861 became the barracks for the Canton- 
ment Anderson. The race track was turned into a drill ground 
for cavalry, infantry and artillery, but was put in order again 
after the war and used many years, developing into a West 
Michigan exposition and moved finally to Comstock Park. 

110 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

The Old Arcade 

Perhaps no locality in town has so much in the way of bits 
of history, comedy and tragedy as the short cut between 
Pearl and Lyon-sts., known as the Arcade. 

In the early days this was an alley leading from Grab 
Corners to Kent, but along in the sixties William T. Powers, 
who owned considerable property nearby, made it a business 
thoroughfare. Later when Grand Rapids became a typical 
lumbering town with everything booming, including the river, 
there were in the county two hundred and forty- six water 
reservoirs, and eighteen licensed rimi holes in near proximity 
to the Arcade. 

It seemed that all the awful thirsts of the valley came here 
to slake. Orators were being imported at considerable ex- 
pense to counteract this evil when Mr. Powers, with open eyes 
and in face of protest and ridicule, sent a drill three himdred 
feet into the earth on his own property in the Arcade and 
opened up a flowing stream of pure cold water tinged with iron. 

In a short time the well was called ''Iron John". Only Mr. 
Powers ever knew what it cost, but it flowed day and night for 
many years and was the greatest temperance reformer in the 
valley. Hundreds paused there daily — ^the business man, log 
runner, lumberjack, newsboy, and wandering dog, all shared in 
the coolness of the Arcade and the blessing of Iron John. A 
treasured visitor for a season or two was a little one-legged 
bird. The newspaper offices of the day were all in the vicinity. 
Hall's book store on the Pearl-st. corner; and Leppig's, where 
one could get the best coffee in town, on the Lyon-st. corner. 

But the Arcade had its shadows and Tom Traxler, one of 
the most faithful police on night patrol, could have told you 
the unhappy side. Many the stray boy that Tom's kind arms 
carried from sleep in the dark corners, many the old booze 
fighter he booted toward jail for safe keeping. 

The entrance to Powers theater for stage people and all 
their baggage, was up a stairway in the Arcade. One sultry 
night when all the windows were open and noise of the under- 
world drifted from the basement saloons down the block and 

111 



THE YESTERDAYS 

blended with the applause and gay music in the theater above, 
Tom Traxler flashed his light into the foot of a dark stairway 
and staggered to Iron John, a moment later carrying a poor 
girl with a baby hugged in her arms. It was too late to save 
the mother, but kind hearted chorus girls gathering aroimd 
seemed to understand and they cared for the baby. 

In contrast to this undercurrent there was a great deal of 
neighboring and friendliness among the various business con- 
cerns along the block. This can best be told with this true 
story of a little dog. 

Music was the name of the little beagle hound which used 
to wander up and down the streets around Grab Corners and 
in the Arcade along in the seventies. He would watch his 
chance to get in the door of Fred Loetgert's dry goods store 
and crawl into the waste-basket in Eliza Hall's millinery de- 
partment, which was in the back of the store. This basket 
was beside Julie, deservedly the most popular saleslady there- 
about for she had a kind word and open hand for every stray 
thing that drifted by. Music was all right until he got to snor- 
ing and then he became a nuisance and when Julie got tired of 
having him around she opened the door and told him to go 
bother his master at the Eagle office. One day she sent him 
forth with the following jingle tied to his neck by a piece of 
blue ribbon: 

I belong to Aaron T., 

But he don't care a cent for me. 
I wander up and down the street, 

Sniff at every one I meet. 

Through the dust and mud I wade, 

Part the time in the Arcade, 
Then in Leppig's stop awhile 

To see Leppig's happy smile. 

Then from there across the way 

With Charlie Hall to have a play 
Back again to Loetgert's shop, 

There I have a happy lot. 

112 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Meat and crackers every day, 

Not a single cent to pay. 
Julie gives them all to me — 

Happy may she ever be. 

When some day I go to sleep 

In the basket at her feet 
She'll forget to wake me up, 

Then goodby to this old pup. 

Music went over to the Eagle office with this card attached 
to his neck and someone took it off and printed it in the even- 
ing paper under the heading of "Doggerel." So here in mem- 
ory is just a bit of the shadow and sunshine of the old Arcade, 

Tramps, After the War 

For many years after the Civil war, the country including 
Western Michigan, was infested with hundreds of wandering 
men who roamed the continent over, sleeping any place at 
all and living on back door lunches and on the sympathies of 
the public, until patience was exhausted and stringent meas- 
ures were taken to eliminate their kind. 

Many have the impression that tramps were mainly men 
who had been in army service. This was true of some because 
for years after the war the totally disabled man received 
only eight dollars a month pension, and from that sum down to 
one dollar for lesser disabilities. These men found it difficult 
to adjust themselves and were often obliged to beg clothing 
and food. After the soldiers' homes were established there 
were few soldiers tramping. 

The term "tramp" was not in use previous to the Civil 
war. It was army slang applied to troops on the march. 
Straggler was the term used to define a foot-loose man prowl- 
ing about the country, and a majority of the service men who 
became tramps were stragglers in the army. Thus right after 
the war, it was easy enough to get a kitchen door hand-out by 
answering, "sure I was," to the query, "were you in the army?" 
People were imposed upon to such an extent that ultimately 

113 



THE YESTERDAYS 

they refused these appeals and the tramps began placing a 
chalk mark code on walk or fence to indicate where one might 
receive hospitality. Householders, if in doubt regarding the 
wanderers deserving help, stipulated some service in return, 
such as splitting a bit of wood for the stove, only the ax fre- 
quently disappeared with the departing guest. 

One dear old friend of mine, not liking to let a tramp in 
the house, sent him to the wood-shed with a sandwich and to 
put on a pair of her husband's cast-off shoes. Later she dis- 
covered one leg of a fine turkey, which had been hanging in 
store for Thanksgiving, had gone over the hill with the sand- 
wich. 

Of the men in my regiment I recall but one man who be- 
came a tramp. His ancestry, not his military life, was re- 
sponsible. Half his father's law practice was in keeping him 
out of jail. He had the address of every man in the Twenty- 
first and called on them all on various pretexts. The last 
call he made on me was for a quarter to buy whitewash for a 
chicken coop. Next day I was called to police court to help 
get a friend out of town. 

One well-educated soldier of my acquaintance never re- 
covered from the wanderlust. I do not know where he found 
the girl he married, but they nailed the windows of a good 
farmhouse and gypsied forty years, traveling all over America. 
In the Yellowstone park they cooked for the tourists and slept 
under their wagon, with their dogs snarling in fright at the 
bears hunting garbage. 

In these stirring days when Horace Greeley urged, ''Go 
west, young man," thousands followed his advice and without 
a dollar drifted on over a trail blazed with chalk. To this 
flotsam was gradually added an army of hoboes, the latter 
the tin-can artists so much cartooned. They followed the rail- 
way and when thrown from the bumpers took revenge by 
wrecking the next train to come through in the night. 

It took many years for the courts to discover that a job 
behind the bars of a workhouse would rid the country of 
tramps, also the three S's — soap, swatter and soup — ^rvere an 

114 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

eliminating factor. In some districts where they used the 
paddle first, the hobo did not wait for the soup. 

In the winter the tramp had a hard time. Many a farm- 
er's barn was fired by an old pipe, and in the town the saloon 
was often the only shelter. For several years there was a 
tramp's lodging house on Canal-st., now lower Monroe, where 
for five cents a man could have two by six feet on the floor, 
and for a dime, a blanket on a side wall plank. Often on bliz- 
zardly nights men were turned away; no room left. To get the 
shelter of the lockup tourists must commit some sort of crime. 
So mother's wandering Willie had a hard road to travel. Not 
till the supply of whisky was limited and a job breaking stone 
provided, did the army of tramps disband. 

The First Railway Strike 

In March, 1858, there was on West Bridge-st., where the 
Lake Shore freight house now stands, a rough riverstone 
building which for some time had been known as the "stone" 
grocery. 

For some years this tippling grocery gave the last chance to 
buy wet goods on the way out of town. The brand of the 
whisky was labeled "Tommyhawk" and was drawn from the 
barrel into tin cups because the ordinary drinking glass was 
so easily broken when thrown against the stone wall above 
the shelves, which often held as much as one hundred dollars 
worth of groceries, including dozens of clay pipes at a penny 
each. 

After passing Turner-av., Bridge-st. for three blocks sloped 
down grade to the level of an ancient river bed, then returned 
to higher ground. This low land was flooded at every river 
freshet and before a high sidewalk was built on the south line 
of the street, boys ferried people across in canoes for a two- 
cent piece. 

This sidewalk had its perils. One night the best doctor in 
the town, who also was the alderman of the ward, in respond- 
ing to a call, landed on his head in the mud. Then the city 
marshal attached a hand rail to guide men who had a filling 
of "Tommyhawk," as well as doctors and other night prowlers. 

115 



THE YESTERDAYS 

In March, 1858, work was started on the grade of the 
Grand Rapids & Indiana railway just north of the stone gro- 
cery. The occasion was of great importance to the public and 
crowds assembled to watch the gang of shovelers. And here 
a few days later was staged the first strike in Grand Rapids. 

When it had ended it is doubtful if the laborers could re- 
call what caused it — too much Tommyhawk in the vicinity 
perhaps. Men lost their heads, or if not lost they were sold 
for a drink to walking delegates and the riot that followed 
called out the sheriff, who was a full sized man, but when he 
read the riot law to the gang they at once attacked him with 
picks and shovels. 

With his back to the wall of the stone grocery, he fought 
single handed until a man with a long handled pitchfork be- 
gan spearing him in the ribs. Then he used his revolver on the 
leader and when John Burke went down the gang scattered 
in a hurry. The coroner sat on John Burke and said it served 
him right. The grocery held a wake that lasted three nights, 
then business was resimied on the grade. 

For a time timid people living in the west section went back 
and forth by way of Fourth-st., the next crossing to the north. 

I do not recall what became of the building, but not long 
ago I saw a man on a Bridge-st. car smoking one of those clay 
pipes. The stem was worn short, but the odor was unmis- 
takably that of the stone grocery. 

Anson L. Norton was the name of that sheriff and for a 
time he was the hero of the town. He was re-elected to office. 
Then the Civil war called and he organized and became cap- 
tain of the Michigan company which formed a part of the 
Lincoln cavalry regiment, Carl Schurz of New York was its 
first and Gen. A. T. McReynolds of Grand Rapids its second 
colonel. 

An Old-Time Doctor 

In the fifties there lived on the west side Dr. Blumrich, a 
German, large, portly and with a heart so big he could not 
get his coat to button. 

Day or night was never so cold or dark that he failed to 

116 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

respond to the call of the sick. Many were the stories told 
of his kindness and one comes to my memory as I think of 
those early days. In a modest home lived an old mother who 
did dressmaking to keep a bone in the cupboard for the dog, 
her only companion. When she fell sick with a misery in her 
back the good doctor came twice a day for a long time. It 
was a fight for life and they won, but the old woman was much 
worried over payment for Dr. Blumrich's services. 

Said the doctor: ''You will find my bill in the Bible on the 
table." So when the doctor was out of sight she crept from bed 
and in the good book found a ten-dollar bill. 

The old doctor also spoke to Farmer Westlake on the Walk- 
er road and he left a load of four-foot maple, and to the boys, 
who made a bee and with their buck-saws and axes cut, split 
and piled the wood in the shed. 

A neighbor woman who had a houseful of girls, but no boys, 
sent word that when the boys were through she would give 
them a feed of biscuit and honey. She did not know a hungry 
boy's capacity. They finished a tub of wild honey lately tak- 
en from a bee tree and plate after plate of biscuit. 

In the party was a red-headed boy who seldom washed his 
neck and never combed his hair. He got an overdose of honey 
inside and much smeared on the outside. Before the next 
morning the doctor had been called to administer a dose of 
castor oil and collect fifty cents. Help for two others cost 
a dose of boneset tea and a dollar. Bless the doctor! He 
knew when it was right to take the butter for his bread. 

When the old doctor passed into the country of the ''beau- 
tiful somewhere" the entire community mourned him. The 
day of the funeral all business ceased. A German band led 
the long concourse to Greenwood — then much farther out in 
the country than it is today. 

The band started from the church with customary dirge, 
slow and solemn, followed by all the fraternal societies of the 
town on foot, then a hundred vehicles. Any person who has 
marched to a dirge knows how difficult it is to keep the step, 
but away out Bridge and Stocking streets, over ungraded 
roads deep with ruts and dust and not until inside the ceme- 

117 



THE YESTERDAYS 

tery did the band miss a note. It was a test of endurance for 
those who marched and those who played. There was no rec- 
ord of the time made, for in those days a trip to the cemetery 
was a solemn, dignified and sorrowful affair. 

On the return the band usually played a quick step, but 
this time the horn players' lips were so stiff they could not blow 
a note. It was a day never forgotten by those who took part. 

That was only one of numerous records made by that Ger- 
man band. The players put their whole soul into the notes 
without a thought of double pay for overtime. And the good 
old doctors, father, nurse and counselor to half the country 
round about, God bless them ! 

Surgery at the Shipyard Forge 

About the year 1854 the east side of Canal-st. north of 
Lyon was built up with small frame stores as far as Bronson- 
st. — now Crescent-st. Back of the stores was an alley. All 
the buildings were set on piles well above the street grade. 
Where the National Biscuit Co. and other Bond-av. buildings 
now stand was a pond that was the happy home of the polly- 
wogs, flies and mosquitoes; also fever and ague. I do not re- 
member exploring this pond north of Bronson-st., for the boys 
of that region were hostile to the boys of Shantytown. On the 
east the pond met the hill. 

In the summer there was usually about three feet of water 
on a ten-foot foundation of mud. Nobody had time to dig 
a ditch or this pond might have been drained into the river. 
Besides it made a good place to throw garbage. 

Near the corner of Lyon and Canal-sts. was a grocery 
kept by a man and his wife. Often men went there for cracker 
and cheese lunches which they ate on the sidewalk because it 
was the more sanitary place. 

One evening the stage brought in a capitalist from the east 
who had a carpet sack said to contain money that he was soin^j; 
to invest in town lots and pine lands. He must have inherited 
or borrowed this money, for he bore all the marks of a man of 
leisure, including a silk hat and white starched shirt with col- 
lar and cuffs. He took a look at the town and in his ramblings 

118 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

came into the shipyard forge. While he was there the cracker 
and cheese merchant and his wife indulged in their daily past- 
time of family dispute. To the men working in the forge this 
was such a common and fifty-fifty affair that it attracted no 
attention, but the capitalist could not see a man beating a 
woman and listen to her screams without a protest. So he ran 
across to the store, caught the man by the collar and in an 
instant they were clinched. 

The moment the woman was free she ran for the cheese 
knife and watching her chance slashed the man who dared 
interfere in their domestic affairs. After the first slash in the 
back the capitalist ran for the alley door with the woman in 
close pursuit and jumped the fence into the pond. He came 
out on the far side a plaster of mud. The woman's skirts held 
her back so she did not get a second slash at him as he ran for 
the forge, leaving a trail of eastern blood all the way. 

The blacksmith laid him face down on a bench and some- 
one hurried out for a doctor. The first one to arrive was Dr. 
DeCamp, who a few years later became famous as an army 
surgeon in the Civil war. It was his first big job and he had 
few instruments and no needles in his outfit; so the harness 
maker came running with a three-sided needle and a black 
linen thread. 

It was much like stitching a patch on the seat of a man's 
trousers. Chloroform and microbes had not come into general 
circulation, but with liberal use of court-plaster and bandages 
the patient survived, though his groans brought in a shop full 
of spectators. 

A few days later the capitalist bought a new suit of cloth- 
ing at Julius Houseman's, paid the doctor and hotel bill and 
that is all this growing city attained of his wealth, so much 
needed at that time. He might have been sold a salt well if 
not for the interruption. 

But trade at the cheese counter was great. All the men in 
town wanted a look at the woman and the more valiant of the 
women a glimpse at the knife she used on the peacemaker in 
the silk hat. 

119 



THE YESTERDAYS 

The Sons of Malta 

Grand Rapids had an organized Masonic lodge as early 
as 1844 and three by 1856. The Odd Fellows were well es- 
tablished by 1858. In 1859 there was organized in the village 
of Grand Rapids a secret society called the Sons of Malta. 

The order was understood to claim origin in the Isle of 
Malta, but the resident branch seems to have drifted into 
somewhat convivial mood and was the source of much jollity 
and fun. The initiation fee was a keg of beer and when a man 
became a member he at once busied himself to further increase 
the membership of the lodge. 

Led one evening by a German brass band imder the leader- 
ship of Franz Blasle, the Sons of Malta came out on parade dis- 
guised much like dismounted Ku Klux. A pillow-case over the 
head and a bed sheet about the body completed the ghostly 
apparel. Some folk then had no change of sheets and the 
wives had to wait until their gay husbands came home be- 
fore they could go to bed. 

The ceremonies of initiation were mostly tricks of deviltry 
such as only real live wires could invent. Then, as now, men 
had confidence in their wives, and women, as today, did not 
forget a good story. The newspapers did not concern them- 
selves with society columns and intimate news was distributed 
mainly through the sewing societies, which became an abso- 
lute necessity. The Malta lodge meetings were held Tuesday 
nights in a hall on Canal-st. The sewing circles met the next 
day. The lodge had a tough time trying to keep its affairs 
away from the public. 

One night a high-headed candidate, thought he was being 
made too much of a target, and when he had cleaned up the 
hall it looked as though a cyclone had passed that way. 

The members had so much to explain upon return to their 
homes that they became discouraged. Nearly every one had 
to account for black eyes, scalp wounds, barked skins, and torn 
shirts. 

There were no assets since the initiation fee had been 
absorbed before the candidate came up for initiation and from 

120 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

that time the Sons of Malta seemed to have vanished like a 
fog before a gale. 

When Simeon Baldwin Killed the Bear 

In 1854 Simeon Baldwin had a brickyard at the "Forks of 
the Road," where the aristocratic Lake-dr. and Fulton-st. now 
meet. That part of the town was then mostly woods, scrub 
oak and frog ponds. 

One day while Mr. Baldwin was shoveling clay from a 
pit into a mixer something came between him and the sun. 
Looking up he met the open mouth grin of a big black bear, 
who gave a sort of salute, raising on his hind legs and making 
the high sign with his paws, saying "woof," which translated 
meant "howdy." He only wanted to be a good neighbor, but 
Baldwin misunderstood "the bear who walked like a man" and 
he cast the shovel away and made fast time to his cabin. 

The wild brother of the woods thought no doubt that was 
the white man's invitation to dinner and ran a close second, 
saying "woof, woof" at every jump. If it had been a longer 
distance he would have been in the lead at the cabin door. All 
the time there was running through the brickmaker's mind the 
then popular song, "Johnnie, get your gun, get your gun." 
The gun was hanging near the door, loaded with buckshot for 
blue racers that abounded in that vicinity and sometimes 
played tag with the boys when they went to drive the cows 
home in the evening. The first shot finished the bear and 
nearly kicked Baldwin into the next lot. 

The following day the bear skin was hanging outside a 
store on Monroe-st. The meat, dressed, weighed three hundred 
and twenty-four pounds and found a ready sale. 

Bear meat is not unlike pork and dad brought home a 
roast, but somehow I could not eat it. I felt sorry for the 
brother of the woods who in a spirit of friendliness had lost out 
and became a party to a skin game. 

The bear's fat was made into oil. Mixed with alcohol and 
scented with bergamot it was quite a popular hair dressing 
for men of early days. 

I never did take kindly to hair oil, for mother made us wear 

121 



THE YESTERDAYS 

night caps if we oiled our heads and only girls wore night caps. 

About that time William Haldane used to hang out at the 
shipyard forge. He came in with a loaf of bread and a bear 
steak to make his noon lunch. He was one of the men who 
never had a grouch. As he broiled his meat on an iron rod 
over the coal fire, he told us his bear story. 

It was in 1837 that he made his first visit to the Rapids, 
coming from Ohio in a single horse and buggy. Beyond Flat 
river he met in the road a fine black dog — a very welcome 
sight as he had driven many miles without seeing a house, and 
a dog was a sure sign of a settlement. 

So he got out of the buggy to cultivate closer acquaintance. 
The animal disputed the right of way and when he went after 
it with a club, clambered up a tree, sat on a limb and grinned 
at him. Down in Ohio dogs did not climb trees. So Haldane 
was anxious to own this one and he took one of the driving 
lines, made noose in the end and climbed up in the tree. He got 
the noose over the animal's head and lowered him to the buggy, 
but there he made so much trouble that he finally chucked it 
into an empty feed bag. This took much time and it was after 
dark when Mr. Haldane arrived at Mr. Fisk's house at the 
mouth of the Thornapple river. 

At the stable he found a piece of rope and fastening it 
about the neck, dragged the animal into the house, where it 
ran under a bed. 

Mrs. Fisk liked dogs, but objected to sleeping with a bear 
in the room, so at bedtime she and her husband climbed the 
ladder into the attic and pulled the ladder up after them. 

Mr. Haldane succeeded in bringing the young bear to the 
Rapids, where it became the playmate of all the children in 
the neighborhood. 

The Tale of Three Bears 

In Baxter's history of Grand Rapids he tells of three bears 
that came to town as late as 1870. 

The people of that time were much the same as those of 
today. They put the large berries on the top of the box and 
Mr. Baxter at the time of his writing simply put the large ber- 

122 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

ries at the top, but I will endeavor to fill in below with what 
happened to the bears after they came to town. 

There was a circus in town on Waterloo (Grandville) street 
hill. In those days there were no billboards to disfigure the 
landscape and every farmer's barn for miles around was plas- 
tered with circus bills. This gayety along with the failure of 
the blackberry crop, no doubt induced the three bears — a 
mother and two well grown cubs — to come in by way of Walk- 
er-av. and Seventh-st. to the river. 

As the water w^as low and to avoid paying toll on the bridge 
the bears crossed on the dam with all the small boys who had 
not been able to "git to go" to the circus following at a re- 
spectful distance. Bears know a lot more than they are given 
credit for and like other fellows who live in the country these 
bears stopped to look at the skyscrapers and other wild things 
along upper Canal-st. There were some things on the street 
then that were very wild. 

This sightseeing was a trifle indiscreet on the part of the 
bears, for it gave the people time to arm against the invaders 
and make their way around by Bridge-st. bridge. There was 
an ordinance prohibiting shooting in the city, but from all 
about came men and boys with every conceivable weapon from 
corn cutters to spades and pitchforks. The bears evidently 
got the scent of one sauerkraut chopper — and quickly made 
their way up the hill where they stopped for a few social calls 
before vanishing in the oak grubs beyond. 

It is recorded that they played tag with a pig or two in the 
streets and tipped over a beehive while the owner thereof gath- 
ered her petticoats and climbed a ladder to the wood-shed roof 
and they left the locality in such a fever of excitement that for 
several days people locked their doors and slept with carving 
knives near at hand. 

But this anxiety was needless, for all the time the bears 
were feeding on sweet apples in Gaylord Holt's orchard on the 
Thornapple river. Mr. Holt had a variety of sweet apples 
that was known far and wide to bears and boys. When they 
combined their appetites the grower got about as many as he 
could carry in his pockets. 

123 



THE YESTERDAYS 

The section of the city that was inspected by the bears 
went through many thrilling events but none its folk liked to 
talk about more often. For the next ten years people dated 
their coming to the Rapids by the year the three bears crossed 
the river on the dam. 

Squire's Opera House and "Uncle Tom" 

Historians date the first bloodshed of the Civil war at Fort 
Sumter. No one has recorded the trail of gore that followed 
the ''Uncle Tom's Cabin" theatricals over our northern land. 
The story of Uncle Tom was like kindling applied beneath a 
cauldron already steaming hot. 

People ^vho lived in Grand Rapids about 1859 remember 
Squire's opera house, located on the west side of Canal-st. not 
far from Bridge, and some may have cause to remember the 
full week's engagement of an Uncle Tom troupe of actors from 
way down east. 

They came in by stage and with their arrival came a story 
that the bloodhounds had captured and eaten a runaway Negro 
at Kalamazoo. 

My excuse for writing this comes from the fact that I had 
the job of distributing the handbills on the street and helping 
on the stage in the evening at fifty cents per day. It was good 
summer-time work and fine work for a boy — like digging gold 
and acquiring a liberal education at the same time. 

Uncle Tom, Eliza, Topsy, Simon Legree, and Marks the 
lawyer, were stars. Topsy, I soon learned, was an alley boy 
in his home town. His only makeup was a woolly wig, some 
burnt cork and a gunny-sack dress. Nature had provided him 
the ''makeup" — a girlish form with the ugliest pair of soup 
bone shins. With his dancing and "nigger" shines he was 
enough for a full show. Behind the curtain Legree and Uncle 
Tom were good friends, but in the parts on the stage friend- 
ship was forgotten. The audience that packed the house, al- 
ready disturbed and partisan over the slavery agitations of the 
day, were carried away with the story. They wept over little 
Eva, mourned for Uncle Tom and wiped their eyes for poor 

124 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Eliza. They hissed Legree and somebody threw a cat at 
Lawyer Marks. 

The rear of the opera house opened on an alley that bor- 
dered the canal. Beyond was the river. In summer all male 
members of show companies washed up in the canal and when 
the stage hands with Topsy and Legree, each with a cake of 
soap and a towel, came out in the light of the lanterns that 
were hanging at the door, they were welcomed by a gang of 
Shantytown boys. These informed Legree that Grand Rapids 
was no place for a nigger driver and they started to put him 
in the swim for Grand Haven. 

Legree got his back to the wall and if there had been more 
light than from a single hanging lantern what happened might 
better not be told. But I noticed that when Legree failed 
to ring the bell Topsy pulled the wire. Those Shantytown 
boys had no chance to clinch and the pile driver blows 
knocked them off the narrow path into the canal, where some 
of them were glad to wash the stars out of their heads. 

When the battle had ended, Topsy had lost his gunny sack. 
His white body with a black face was funnier than his make- 
up on the stage. 

The next evening the curtain rolled up before an overflow 
audience. From the center of the stage hung a punching bag 
and Legree came out and in a pleasant way said: 

"It is the duty of an actor to give the best there is in him," 
and added that the events of the evening before had given 
him assurance that his part had been well taken. He laid 
aside his coat and stripped to the waist, gave them an exhibi- 
tion of a boxing master's skill. Then thanking the young 
gentlemen who attended the social of the previous evening 
the ?how proceeded before a somewhat chastened crowd of 
spectators. 

The First Strawberry Farm 

There is an interesting story regarding the first cultivation 
of the strawberry in the valley of the Grand, or at least in the 
first commercial patch of the delicious fruit. 

Once upon a time, way back east, there was a village 

125 



THE YESTERDAYS 

boy who like all boys had an appetite. During June days he 
was chased out of every field of meadow land for miles about 
where strawberries grew wild in the grass. Farmers said he 
trampled down the hay. So intent was he down on his knees 
trying to fill his little basket that often the owner of the 
meadow caught him by the neck of his shirt and sent him over 
the rail fence into the road. It seemed to him there was no 
place where he could get a basketful without disaster overtak- 
ing him in the search. 

But he was encouraged by a neighbor's girl who told him to 
go west and find a patch he could call his own and she would 
come and help pick them. So when he was twenty-one he 
packed all his property in a carpet sack and hiked to the Grand 
river country. Several miles below the Rapids he found the 
ideal place where a few acres had been cleared by the Indians 
and planted for years in corn. He bought out the red man and 
planted in rows the strawberry plants taken from the fields 
along the river bank. All about were masses of wild plums, 
crabapples, thornapples, blackberries, gooseberries and grapes. 
The white men came that way and said, ^'Stedman, you are a 
blank fool." But Stedman, an aggressive man with a fist as 
large as a boxing mitt, told them to go to. 

The wild berry, unlike the wild Indian, grew under culti- 
vation. The upriver town grew also and boys and girls came 
down in canoes and picked on shares. 

The grower's half was sold in town, the picker's share made 
shortcakes. Stedman's girl came from the east and joined 
him and while the berry patch grew the crop of children forced 
an addition to the house. 

It was about this time the writer came into the game. He 
had a large canoe that would carry three girls and their bas- 
kets and all through the berry season he made daily trips. 

One of the stolen pleasures of those trips was a visit to a 
swimming hole on the far side of a willow-covered sand bar 
while the girls toiled on. The idea that girls would like to go 
where they could get wet all over at once, had never entered 
the minds of people. 

After many years Mr. Stedman came to my father and 

126 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

said, ''Jim, I've made some money and have a lot of children. 
I am going across the lake and spread out on a prairie farm 
where I can raise cattle and sheep. Everybody is raising straw- 
berries now. They have found out how good they are. I only 
went into the business anyway to spite those hide-bound hay- 
seeds back east." So he went away from the river farm where 
it is said the first cultivated strawberries in the Grand river 
valley were grown. 

There are folks now who claim the wild berry has a better 
flavor than the tame one. I wonder were they ever chased out 
of the meadow by a farmer and his dog? There is an old 
saying: ''That doubtless, God could have made a better berry, 
but is doubtful if he ever did." 

The Shingle Maker 

One of the industries of the early days which is now almost 
forgotten, was the making or shaving of shingles. The shingle 
weaver, so called from the way he wove and bound the shingles 
into bundles, was an important factor in the development of 
Western Michigan. 

The first settlers were wasters of timber and the great 
pines were ruthlessly cut down for the first cuts of clear stuff. 
What would not split into shingles was left to decay or burn, 
being considered too light for good stove wood. 

The great pine was really the despair of the pioneer, for 
aside from the shingle it was hard to dispose of, it being al- 
most impossible to burn the stumps. They simply charred 
over. But in making shingles the settler found means by 
which to live while clearing the land and raising a crop. 

One of these shingle weavers whom it was my privilege to 
know was Nicholas Emmons. He came from the east and 
was one of the first men to settle on the shores of Camp lake, 
near Sparta. To reach this promised land of the west and 
make a home for his wife and two sons he walked several 
hundred miles with a pack upon his back. This may seem a 
simple matter in this day of good roads and with every con- 
venience along the way, but I cannot adequately express what 
it meant at that time. As one man after another passed 

127 



THE YESTERDAYS 

through the settlements to be swallowed up by the forests one 
only knew that there was no wild life to ambush him. His 
powers of endurance were the test. He was not unlike the birds 
of the air in their flights each season. There was some power 
that impelled him onward. 

When Emmons arrived at Camp lake there were only a 
few scattered settlers with their little log cabins and mere 
patches of cleared land. With a ten-foot pole he surveyed his 
quarter-section in the great forest and built his cabin of logs, 
with its stone and mud fireplace, facing on the water. When 
all was ready he went back east for his wife and boys. How 
often have I sat before the fire in that little loghouse and 
feasted on new maple syrup and dear Mother Emmons' biscuit 
and fritters, for my father and mother lived only a mile from 
them for four years after the Civil war. 

The Emmons' had been there twenty years at that time but 
had never gotten through cutting shingles. A bunch of shingles 
was legal tender, as good as a bank account when starvation 
was a window peeper and the cold winds of winter whistled 
through the elbows of a worn-out coat. 

To pull one end of a cross-cut saw with Uncle Nick Em- 
mons and turn the great pine into shingles, chop, split, rive and 
shave, then pack until there was load enough for an ox team, 
then sixteen miles over the forest trail to the Rapids ! 

It took all of a week's time to make a load of shmgles 
and get to town and back, but it meant provisions, spelling 
books for boys, wool cloth for a pair of pants, so dad's old ones 
could be made over for son, and perhaps a bit of something 
for mother. Shingles covered the cost of the absolute necessi- 
ties until the land was cleared and crops at hand. We recall 
the hard times and wildcat money of the town people, but 
they always found enough to get to the circus. The weaver's 
dollar was often as large as his cabin. I class these men as 
the real pioneers of Western Michigan, but their only monu- 
ments are a few pine stumps, black ghosts of the forests. Their 
shingles floated away from the Rapids on the lumber rafts 
and river boats, they traveled to every part of the country by 
water and rail, they sheltered the rich and the poor, covered 

128 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

the mansion and the cowshed. Personally the ones I remember 
most clearly were those that in the hands of the school ma'am 
landed upon my spanker beam. 

The Islands 

Although the Rapids was a good sized town when I came 
here, the islands were still in the river, and known only by 
number as one, two, and three. There was a fourth, about 
which there was a dispute. French people called it Robard's, 
others Robarge, but it was of little importance. The three 
formed a beautiful river park that had it been retained in its 
primitive grandeiu*, could not have been surpassed by any 
work of man. 

I had a love for islands, because my great adventure before 
coming to Michigan was when my father put me in the bow of 
a canoe and paddled to Butternut island in the St. Lawrence 
river, where we camped out and gathered a load of hazel 
and butternuts for the coming winter. From that time islands 
had a grip on me that I made no effort to cast off. 

The number one island began just about the foot of Lyon-st. 
and number three terminated about where the Wealthy-st. 
bridge now crosses the river. The three islands were divided 
by narrow channels and rapid currents. Only small boats 
could navigate between. 

My first view was in June, 1854, when from the top deck 
of the river steamer we came up the east channel to land at 
the Eagle hotel dock. A few days later I was getting ac- 
quainted with the town and near the Butterworth foundry 
met Harry Eaton and his gang, who by way of initiation to 
the west, proceeded to push me off a slab pile into the river 
to see if I could swim. I could and struck out for the head of 
Island number one. 

A few Indian wigwams were under the wide branching 
maple trees which gave protection from sun and rain, and 
two laughing Indian boys in canoes were trying to capsize each 
other. A solitary Indian standing like a statue under a tree 
grunted his disapproval of the boys on the shore and dis- 
appeared into his tepee. 

129 



THE YESTERDAYS 

Sitting on a rock in the sun to dry my clothing, I studied 
the rapids and hundreds of large boulders of granite and lime 
rock about which the waters rushed. Except for a little cleared 
land where the Indians had planted corn, the west shore was 
all a meadow of deep, rich grass and blended tints of wild 
growth. 

In after years I often thanked Harry Eaton for pushing 
me off that slab pile, because it gave me my first day under 
those wonderful water maples. I was somewhat older before 
I really appreciated the great sycamores at the water's edge, 
the island plateau of giant water elms, the almost tropical 
mass of grape vine that festooned the trees, and in every de- 
pression the wild plum and crabapple that crowded the 
elder bushes and sumac, and that I came to love the tinkle of 
bells, on cows that had waded the river to feed on the abun- 
dant grass, blended with the music of blackbirds and bob-o- 
links swaying about on the cattails. 

On the east channel, nearly opposite the foot of Pearl-st., 
stood the great-grandfather of all sycamores, just above the 
low water mark. When the Indians set up their wigwams 
there in the spring they suspended swings for the children on 
the long angling branches, and hung baskets of food far out 
on the limbs away from the reach of dogs. In the white man's 
day many boats were locked to staples driven in the body 
of this tree. 

But even then the three islands were almost without a 
blemish. Indians never built a fire at the foot of a tree and the 
high water that flooded the islands each year washed them free 
of all refuse of their camps. The heavy covering of grass and 
plants prevented washing of the soil. The prevailing west 
winds wafted the odors of trees and flowers over the village. 

May not an old man of today be forgiven for a longing 
that this beautiful playground of his boyhood might have 
been spared for his great-grandchildren? Only men of deep 
thinking can tell you how long nature was in creating and 
clothing these islands, but any school boy with a piece of 

130 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

chalk can figure how long man was in obliterating the last 
trace of them. 

The Mission Land 

French Jesuit missionaries located headquarters at Mack- 
inac Island prior to 1662. From there members were sent to 
all the Indian tribes along Lake Michigan, including Grand 
river, more than two hundred years ago, but nothing very- 
definite has been learned from their records. 

By the treaty with the Indians of the Grand river valley 
in 1821, among other concessions, was one square mile of 
land for mission purposes. Beside the river well-worn trails 
led to this location which was staked to rim south and west 
from the present corner of West Bridge and Front-av. There 
is little in print that gives personal touch with the men who 
selected the location, but they were wise beyond our thoughts 
today. Besides being sacred to the Indian as the land of his 
ancestors, the birthplace of his traditions; the scenic beauty 
of forest and stream, its abundance of fruit, game and fish had 
attracted the Indian for unknown ages to this place. 

When the first missionaries had established their log school- 
house, church and blacksmith shop they saw at once that some 
day it would become a place of importance. Others saw this as 
well; the trader quick to take advantage of the furs which 
the Indian would trap, the speculator with an eye to the for- 
ests of valuable trees and more important than either, the 
settler who would populate the country with an enterprising 
white race. 

As a place where the Indian would be civilized the mission 
was a dismal failure and by the terms of the treaty the lands 
were eventually sold and the proceeds divided, the Baptists 
receiving $12,000 and the Catholics $8,000 after a long period 
of litigation. The old buildings were not totally obliterated 
until the early sixties. 

In the fifties the land was platted. A dense growth of oak 
grubs covered most of the ground except where the Indians and 
a few whites had grown corn and other crops. 

Boston capitalists secured the land and gave to the streets 

131 



THE YESTERDAYS 

very generally the names of popular Boston avenues, having 
no sentiment and little thought of its becoming historic ground. 
There was no one to say a good word for the red man who 
used such poetical and appropriate terms for every locality. I 
know of no place in western Michigan of its size with so much 
hidden history, tradition, myth and romance buried beneath 
its busy life of home and factory. 

The three buildings of the mission are well remembered 
by the people of the fifties. They were by that time weather 
beaten shacks, windowless and mere wind breaks for the cattle 
that pastured on the commons. The beautiful bronze plate 
placed by the D. A. R. on the street car barns on Front-av. 
does not mark the exact location of the buildings but is as 
near as can be and remain permanent. 

The riverstone forge of the deserted smithshop had a charm 
for small boys. It was an ideal place to roast green corn 
"cooned" from garden patches. 

One day there came to work in father's shop, Burritt, one 
of the early mission blacksmiths. He had lived most of his 
life among the Indians and they came from long distances to 
get his help in repairing their guns and spears. He often 
joined the boys at the old mission forge and they became very 
fond of him. 

One day two Indians came in a Mackinaw boat and talked 
a long time in the Ottawa dialect with Burritt. After they 
had gone he told father he was lonely and was going back to 
the reservation at Pentwater because the Indians needed him. 
Father said he was the best missionary the Ottawas ever had. 
When Burritt took the final trail to the happy hunting ground 
all the Indians on the reservation were there to listen to the 
farewell tribute of an Indian preacher, given in his own im- 
pressive way. 

Personally I had no acquaintance with or recollection of 
any of the early missionaries, but know that Chief Noon Day 
of the Ottawas was the most prominent convert to the white 
man's faith. 

132 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Rafting and the Chanty Men 

Before and for some time after the coming of the railroads 
all the limiber made in the Grand Rapids valley, that was not 
used to supply the local demand, was rafted to the Haven, 
where it was loaded on ships for other lake ports. The boats 
were usually two or three-masted schooners manned by hardy 
sailors, whose skill brought them into port through narrow 
channels in gales of wind and often driving snow. 

There were many sawmills on Grand river and its tribu- 
taries that had no other shipping facilities. Logs from the 
nearby forests came in on the snow, on sleds, and were rolled 
into the booms and ponds of the water-power mills, sawed to 
dimension and then in the quiet water made into rafts by 
men skilled in the business. First came long, heavy stuff for 
a foundation, then shorter lumber for cross piling. By a sys- 
tem of overlapping or shingling, the lumber was woven into 
many layers. In times of good water the rafts were two feet 
thick. Heavy pieces at the top were pinned at the ends and 
to the bottom sills, with tough hardwood split from river bank 
trees. All the tools needed were an ax and an auger. When the 
raft was finished there was often added a deck-load of shingles 
and lath. 

By reason of the chute in the dam at the rapids here these 
rafts could not be more than sixteen feet wide, but were often 
two hundred feet in length. A long, heavy sweep at either end 
for steering gear and then with a crew of five men the raft 
was ready to float. 

Once out of the small streams the many rafts were made 
into fleets and floated to the quiet ponds above the dam at 
Grand Rapids, where again they were separated into single 
rafts in order to pass the chute and sent through the rapids to 
quiet water below. There they were again assembled for their 
final voyage to the Haven. 

The great adventure was the passage over the dam and 
down the narrow chute and channel of the rapids and often in 
high water the rafts were wrecked against the boulders outside 
the channel or swept crosswise of the current, where they made 
a dam of themselves. One season a raft climbed the break- 

133 



THE YESTERDAYS 

water of Bridge-st. bridge and was torn to pieces. The rafts- 
men were seriously hurt and nearly drowned. 

The salvaging of lath and shingles was a source of consid- 
erable profit to energetic boys who received five cents a bunch 
from the owners. Drift lumber furnished material for many 
of the farm buildings along the banks of the Grand. Stray 
boards, like stray thoughts, could not prove their owners and 
there were no claimants. 

Rafting developed a new type of man. Almost any man 
could run a boat down stream, but it required a peculiar skill 
and river instinct to keep a long fleet of lumber rafts out of 
the way of passing river steamers, to avoid sand-bars and the 
lure of lost channels and bayous on the lower stretches where 
the wind was apt to struggle for the master hand. 

The sweeps for the steering must work in imison and so 
the men sang or chanted as they worked. 

The chanty man, as he has been called, had his beginning 
with what is perhaps the most beautiful work of man's hands 
— the sailing ship — and the ''chantys" are the working songs 
of the water. Many of them have been handed down through 
generations and followed certain haunting melodies, but the 
songs of the raftsmen were usually improvised to suit the 
occasion. There was hardly a duty on the floating fleet of 
lumber which had not its own chanty to go with it, with one 
line solo and four lines chorus, in which all the events of the 
journey were told. 

I suppose the voice of the average raftsman was on a low 
level, but one could not be insensible to the charm of the song 
and the swishing of the sweeps that came to one out of the 
night or from above some river bend. 

That grand old river man, Thomas Friant, could tell you 
of chanty men who sang their way from the River Rouge to 
the lumber docks at the Haven. 

Nearly all the raftsmen were French-Canadian. They 
worked in the lumber woods in the winter and drifted nat- 
urally to the river in the summer. Returning from the Haven 
to the Rapids by boat the rest of their journey to the mills was 
on foot. The returning trip always included a day in town 

134 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

and meals at the hotel. On the way down the river the cap- 
tain bought supplies from the farms and they lived on the fat 
of the land. 

Saddle Bag Swamp 

When I was a boy in young Grand Rapids it was cus- 
tomary for the people to go out and gather the wild fruit for 
the table and for preserving for winter use, Saddle Bag swamp 
was the best place in all the valley for gathering the high 
bush huckleberry. This swamp was about six miles east of 
the city and there were two ways of getting there : By follow- 
ing the Rix Robinson trail or over a winding, sandy road — 
now East Leonard Street. 

Ditches and drains have left but little evidence of this 
basin of water and rich black land, the last trace of an ancient 
lake bed. The first survey lines of the Detroit, Grand Haven 
& Milwaukee railroad crossed this territory, but the swamp 
hungrily swallowed the roadbed on several occasions and the 
men who built it were obliged to turn aside to the higher 
groimd. 

The swamp was free to everybody and barefoot boys with 
their baskets, farmers in their wagons, and the well-to-do in 
their buggies resorted there to gather berries. In the autimin 
it was a profitable place for the hunter. It was also the natural 
home for many rare wild flowers, the orchids, pink and yellow 
lady slippers and the pitcher plant, or fly trap, among them. 
Plant lovers who ventured there in the spring days wore hip 
wading boots — more as a protection against snakes than water, 
for everything in the line of wiggling serpents from the harm- 
less little garter-snake to the black water-snake, rattler and 
blue racer might be encountered there. 

I ventured into this swamp one frosty morning when on 
the ground under almost every clump of bushes was a coil of 
reptiles, chilled and numb with the cold. I went at that time 
for the high bush cranberries that were ripe and bordering the 
water pools with the glow of crimson fruit. 

Not far from one border of the swamp lived a man who 
was trying to clear a farm and make a living and that man had 

136 



THE YESTERDAYS 

a boy. The boy is now the gold braided, white haired police- 
man, John Conlon, who has tramped his beat on the streets of 
Grand Rapids nearly forty years. I will tell you as nearly as 
I can a story that he told me only a week or so ago. 

"It was the day before the Fourth of July, There was to 
be a grand celebration in the Rapids, fireworks and a parade. 
I longed to go but what could a boy do in town on the Fourth 
without so much as one cent of money to spend and there was 
nothing in the house or on the farm to sell. But mother was 
my chum and she came forward with a basket and the sug- 
gestion that I go to the swamp and gather berries and perhaps 
I could find someone in town to buy them. I fought snakes 
and worked until dark, but I got enough ripe berries to fill 
the basket and my hat. At six o'clock Fourth of July morn- 
ing I was trudging down Monroe-st. in my Sunday clothes, but 
barefoot and carrying my heavy basket. 

"On the front steps of the National hotel — right over there 
where the Morton now stands — was the colored cook. He 
hailed me. 'Boy, what you all got in that er basket.' I showed 
him the berries and with a delighted grin he offered me a silver 
dollar. I followed him through to the kitchen and he chuckled 
all the way over the huckleberry pie his folks were going to 
get for their Fourth of July dinner. 

''At that time there was a spring brook with its source at 
the foot of the hills. It came in a winding, careless way, across 
lots, then ran under the hotel porch into a sluice that crossed 
the street. I was hungry, hot and tired and I went out from 
the kitchen and knelt down by the brook and drank and 
washed the dust off my face. As we stood here today I can see 
that old National hotel with its white paint and green window 
blinds — and the brook running into its hiding place under the 
steps. And my silver dollar? Never did an American boy 
get quite so much for his hard earned money." 

Saddle Bag swamp in the early days was considered al- 
most worthless ; in fact, the first settlers bought it up for some- 
thing like a shilling an acre. As the country became cleared 
the owners set a tax of a few cents a quart for picking berries — 

136 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

no extra charge for killing snakes — and now the land that 
is drained is the most valuable in the section. 

The Wild Pigeon 

Among the most wonderful of bird stories is that of the 
wild pigeon. I am glad that there are still living many wit- 
nesses to the facts I am relating, for otherwise I might be 
charged with fairy tales. 

At the time the first white man came to Michigan the woods 
were filled with flocks of these beautiful birds. They nested 
in trees, in a bundle of sticks and lived in pairs until September 
or October when they gathered in flocks for their flight to the 
South. Though many were killed each year they increased in 
numbers. I recall seeing them in flocks when on windy days 
they flew so low that they were often killed with cane fish 
poles or long sticks. They seemed to gather in flocks as by a 
general order and in their flight over the city, with the speed 
and almost the roar of an airship, they made great wing 
shooting. 

A favorite stopping place with them was at the salt mead- 
ows below the west side plaster mills. The water there had 
a slightly salt taste, very agreeable to man, and seemed much 
liked by the birds. They fed also on the grass and on the oak 
ridges to the west. I have seen a hundred acres densely cov- 
ered with flocks going and coming about these marshes. 

As a food these pigeons were a great blessing to the early 
settlers. Through several winters my mother served spiced 
pigeon to her guests as a choice dish. In the cellar were rows of 
stone jars packed solid with birds pickled in spiced apple cider 
and sealed with air-tight covers. The minister never had to 
eat woodchuck at our house. 

I am permitted to use the word of Frank Chickering, a 
long-time resident of this city, who followed pigeon netting as 
a business for several years. Mr. Chickering says: 

'T learned to catch pigeons in a net when I was ten years 
old at Millford, N. H. When fourteen years old I went to 
Sandy Creek, N. Y., hired a horse and wagon and drove six 
miles to Boylston, where the birds were nesting and feeding. 

137 



THE YESTERDAYS 

I made one haul and caught forty -two dozen and two pigeons. 

"I hired people in the vicinity to pick them and shipped 
them by express to New York City, where I received four 
dollars per dozen. That was in 1856. For many years I fol- 
lowed the birds to their nesting and feeding places as far south 
as the Cumberland mountains and north to many points in 
Michigan. 

"Their first nesting was in the south and their second in 
the north. Their nests in the trees were made of a few sticks 
to hold two eggs. The females left the nest at daylight to 
feed, going as far as twenty miles, and the males took their 
places. When the mother bird returned her mate went out, 
coming back at dark. They fed upon all kinds of nuts, the 
grass of lowland fields, and left the country entirely stripped 
of everything green. 

''The nets were set in an open space, the operators conceal- 
ing themselves in clumps of brush. The net was thrown by a 
spring pole. Decoy pigeons were staked out and a few hand- 
fuls of corn scattered in range of the net. Coming in flocks 
with the speed of the wind the birds swirled down about the 
decoys until the ground was blue with them. The spring pole 
threw the wide net and the birds were captives, their heads only 
coming up through the meshes in their efforts for liberty. Their 
heads were pinched to kill them. They were hauled away 
by wagon loads to the w^arehouse and prepared for shipment 
to New York and Boston markets. 

''Many men followed the birds, netting them every year 
until 1880, when they disappeared and never since has a single 
one of them been seen." 

Mr. Chickering says he will pay $1,000 for a pair of live 
birds and the National Geographic society has a standing 
offer of $5,000 for a pair. 

I know that to the present generation the story of the 
pigeon may seem a romance so I take the opportunity to quote 
in brief from the writings of Audubon and Wilson, two of the 
greatest observers of bird life. 

Audubon noticed "a continuous flight of pigeons for three 
days, to his calculation one billion, one hundred and foxirteen 

138 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

million." As every bird consumed half a pint of food daily, 
figure it out yourself. 

Wilson gives an account of a roosting place in the woods 
that occupied a large area. ''The ground was covered several 
inches with their droppings, all the grass and underbrush de- 
stroyed, the surface strewn with large limbs broken down by 
the weight of birds and the trees for thousands of acres 
destroyed as if girdled with an ax. When these roosts were 
first discovered people came in the night and with clubs and 
other implements of destruction killed them by the wagon 
load. One of these breeding places was several miles in width 
and forty miles in length. In many trees more than one 
hundred nests were made." 

These wonderful birds had but one enemy so far as we 
know and that was man. There was no closed season and 
followed so relentlessly from nesting to feeding place may it 
not be that the same instinct that controlled their flights 
guided them to some vast wilderness unknown to man? 

The Straw Man 

Along in the 1850's the mattress maker was still bunking in 
Noah's ark and the inventor of the spring bed had not been 
born. 

Cords were the proper support for the billow of feathers 
or straw ticks that made up the bed. In our town as in every 
other, the rich slept in feathers and common folk on straw. 
One way in which to detect a rich man or woman was by the 
feathers in whiskers or hair, while the others, particularly the 
young men, reveled in wild oats. Wheat straw did not sprout 
so readily as oat and was cheaper. 

Every good housekeeper filled her bed ticks with fresh 
straw one a month and mother for her spare bedroom would 
use nothing but the best oat that had been threshed by flails. 
One time father pulled a man out of the river and he was so 
grateful that when he threshed his oats he brought to our 
barn a full load of straw — enough to last a year. We carried 
out the ticks and filled up with oat straw until we had to use 
a chair to climb into bed. Next to the hickory shirts which 

139 



THE YESTERDAYS 

men wore at that time the bed ticking was the meanest cloth 
made. 

Most of the fresh bedding was purchased from peddlers 
who went about the streets with their wagons and horses 
shouting ''straw, straw." In early morning the straw man's 
call waked all the babies and in some cases ''straw" was the 
first word they learned to say. The straw man was the nois- 
iest thing in town and became such an irritation to the nerves 
of the feather bed citizens that Charles Warrell, our city clerk, 
in desperation composed a poem about the straw man which 
was read to the city council and printed on the front page of 
the Daily Eagle. I do not know that the poem was made a 
part of the official proceedings, but it became the base of an 
ordinance that muzzled the straw man. 

There appeared in the society news one July day an item 
to the effect that Mrs. Uptown, who was one of the "two- 
hundred," had substituted straw for her feather bed. The lady 
stopped her paper and her husband went fishing for a few 
days. Nowadays the reporter would have explained more 
tactfully that the lady had gone to the seashore during the 
heated season. 

All good things come to an end and some fellow invented 
the wire springs and cotton mattress and the straw bed be- 
came a thing of the past. 

There was still some use left for straw. It served on the 
floor as padding under the carpets and later until the recent 
dry spell, the large, smooth specimens were used by persons of 
discriminating taste in disposing of a concoction called a 
mint julep. 

Pay Days 

Commercial credit was good along in the fifties. There 
were two times for settlement of debts; in the spring when 
suckers were running and sheep being sheared, and after har- 
vest when wheat was threshed. 

With the moving out of the ice the suckers came up the 
river like rays of sunshine. They were legal tender for all 
transactions. A second bank had come to town and fisher- 

140 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

men could put up a string of suckers as collateral for a loan, 
provided the borrower accepted the bank's "wildcats." 

It must have been conditions here that gave Barnum the 
thrill that produced that epic, ''There is a sucker born every 
minute." Grand river speeded up and produced a sucker 
every second. The inhabitants feasted on suckers. Fried 
with salt pork, boiled with cream and butter dressing, stuffed 
with dressing, the platter garnished with watercress and 
always a few barrels salted for winter consumption. 

It was claimed that old residents became so expert they 
kept a run of suckers going in one corner and a bundle of 
neatly tied bones coming out the other corner of their mouths. 
And some of those old residents thought they ought to collect 
a royalty from McCormick, the inventor of the self-binding 
harvester. This idea came when he visited here a few days 
and witnessed our perpetual motion machine. One of our 
surgeons hung a sort of safety first card in his ofiice: ''Don't 
hurry. A bone in the mouth is worth two in the throat." 

The wool growers had no time to net suckers. They sheared 
sheep to pay their store bills, then made logging bees to clean 
up more land for pasture. Everybody was invited, a sheep 
butchered for dinner and those "bees" became such a daily 
event that men claimed that wool began growing between 
their teeth. It was an act of Providence that made sheep 
produce twin lambs or there would not have been mutton to 
go around. 

Thus the people swapped crops until the spring run of 
suckers came again. Of course there were many other fine 
food fish, but it was quantity production that counted. Many 
a pair of lovers spent blissful hours on the bridge watching 
the sturgeon and red fin mullet. 

The fellow who goes casting for bass is a poet with an 
appetite and in those days one might often meet a man with 
the soul of a Tennyson dragging a six-foot sturgeon along the 
board walk of the main street. 

The Salt Water Baths 
A short distance north of Bridge-st. bridge on the east 

141 



THE YESTERDAYS 

river bank along in the forties was a large, barn-like structure, 
Truman H. Lyon's salt works. The building was over a deer 
lick spring, the water of which was brackish and indicated 
salt not far away. Wells were drilled and large wooden tanks 
in the basement held the water which was pumped for storage 
before reaching the evaporating process. 

Considerable salt was made here, but financially the bus- 
iness was not a success so along in the fifties the building was 
remodeled into an edge tool factory, but the tanks were left 
in the basement, the overflow going into the river. 

Charles Hathaway, the proprietor and chief workman, was 
a man well liked by all who knew him. A fact always inter- 
esting to boys was that his father was one of George Wash- 
ington's generals in Revolutionary days. 

In the factory were heavy trip hammers and forges where 
many kinds of edge tools of combined iron and steel were 
welded together by a flux of borax that flashed from the ham- 
mer blows in streams of liquid fire. The workmen wore lea- 
ther aprons to protect themselves and the boys loved to hang 
around and watch them. 

Mr. Hathaway told the boys about the water tanks in the 
basement. When the day's work was done the trap in the 
floor was raised and the men washed themselves free from 
the grime of the forge with a salt water bath and he gave the 
boys permission to play there when the place was not in use 
by the men. 

Bathing suits were an unthought-of need then, and now 
when I visit the bathing beaches I am wondering if we are not 
getting back to those unblushing days. 

The water was cold and frequently the fellows ran up the 
stairway to dress by the heat of the forge. It was not always 
by accident that some of them got a blister, for if they became 
too numerous a spurt of hot scales and borax shot out from 
some trip hammer, catching them amidships and sending them 
home with their soup bone shanks resembling a case of 
measles. 

Sometimes if there were no people on the bridge walk near 

142 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

by, they went from the salt water tank to the warmer water 
of the river. 

This salt water bathing had a few drawbacks. The great 
timber supports of the basement became covered with a red 
rust that not even soft soap would wash out of a fellow's 
shirt. Nevertheless, it must have contributed some good red 
blood to the community, for among the men who played there 
as boys were Charles Leonard of refrigerator fame. Gains 
Perkins, Sidney Stevens; Fred Church, the Artist; Le Grand 
Pierce, Charlie and Fred Rose; Del Squires, the acrobat; and 
Peter Weber and Charles Bolza, who went down on southern 
battlefields. 

The pleasure of the salt baths became noised about and R. 
E. Butterworth, a wideawake man with shops at the foot of 
the canal, drilled a well and put in modest bathtubs for those 
who had a quarter to spare. The brine of the bathrooms was 
all right, but the common run of boys jumped or dived from the 
railroad bridge at the head of the rapids or to the west of the 
islands and the Butterworth mineral baths had to be dis- 
continued for want of patronage. 

In the meantime the gang increased at the tool factory 
and overflowed from the tanks to the river, for Mr. Hathaway 
was mighty kind to the boys and between heats at the 
forge told them how he ironed the battleship Morgan, which, 
armed with six-pounder cannon, went forth to quell Lake 
Michigan's Mormon rebellion on Beaver Island. Finally, he 
called the boys together and told them that some of the Mor- 
mons in retaliation seemed to be camping on the opposite 
bank of the river armed with spy glasses, and he would suggest 
they keep within bounds or he would have to put blinds on 
the factory. 

Perhaps after all, Mr. Hathaway collected dividends on 
the salt wells in the fun he had with the boys. 

Colonel George Lee 
Among the first men I became acquainted with after com- 
ing to the Rapids was George Lee, a clerk or assistant cashier 

143 



THE YESTERDAYS 

in Daniel Ball's bank, which occupied a frame building on the 
present site of the Old National bank. Before and after office 
hours Mr. Lee came to the shipyard and forge, where at any 
vacant work-bench he made canoe paddles, fish rods and 
spear poles. He never interfered with the men and they all 
liked him. 

William Renwick at the same time was trying to make 
reels and jointed rods for bass casting and they often worked 
together. 

Grand river was the fisherman's paradise. The river bed 
below the dam was filled with large boulders, between which 
the waters swirled and any quiet pool behind a rock was sure 
to be harboring a hungry bass. Men fished from a canoe, one 
man poling from the stern and another casting from the bow. 
This required a skill only gained by practice. 

Before Mr. Lee married we went out often together in my 
canoe in the early morning hours. Mother broiled our bass 
and gave us hot beaten biscuit for breakfast. He was ten 
years older than I and when he married our pleasure on the 
river was somewhat interrupted, even before the Civil war 
called us away. 

Mr. Lee helped organize a company for the second regi- 
ment of cavalry and as a lieutenant and adjutant began a 
career in the army of the Cumberland in 1862 under the eyes 
of Gen. Sheridan. 

It was my fortune to serve in Sheridan's division and there 
again our acquaintance was renewed and nearly two years of 
my service was in close contact with Adjt. Lee. He was ex>- 
acting but unfailing in his kindness to the home boys and gave 
us many opportunities for service and adventure. 

Lee was also popular with Sheridan who let no day pass 
without an invitation to a test of skill with the enemy's out- 
posts. Sheridan was very impetuous and Lee quiet and self- 
controlled and the brigade and regimental commanders were 
soon calling Lee the general's balance wheel. As his adjutant 
he kept the books and the general planned the combats and 
battles. 

144 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Lee advanced in rank and the eagles of a cavalryman rested 
on his shoulders when the scourge of yellow fever carried him 
ofif in 1867 at New Orleans. Lee did not return to Grand 
Rapids at the close of the war but remained in the regular 
service as the chief of Gen. Sheridan's staff. 

There might not have been a Sheridan so renowned had it 
not been for the bank clerk, the lieutenant of the Second Mich- 
igan cavalry, the surviving members of which are on a trot 
down the pike and there will soon be no one to write the story 
of this Michigan boy who rode with Sheridan from the cotton 
fields of Mississippi to ''Winchester town," where they rallied 
a panic stricken army and headed it back to victory. 

More than thirty years ago there came to me in one of the 
committee rooms at the national capitol a quiet little woman 
saying, ''I am Mary Lee." 

What memories the name recalled! Mrs. Lee was serving 
as a clerk in one of the war department divisions. Her small 
pension as the widow of this gallant officer was not enough 
to maintain her. It became my privilege, as a member of the 
military committee, to make a small return for all the bait 
George Lee had cast upon the waters, and, with Uncle Sam's 
assistance Mary Lee was made comfortable for the rest of 
her life. 

Lieutenant Robert Wilson 

Because of my warm friendship with Robert Wilson dur- 
ing and after the Civil war I feel a desire to tell something 
of this man who, as a reporter on the Daily Eagle, tagged 
''Grab Corners" and made the locality a far-reaching byword. 

Chicago's famous Rookery was often sold to hay seeds, but 
I never heard of a bargain hunter buying Grab Corners after 
Wilson advertised it in the Eagle. 

Artemas Ward with his "wax figures" was not a word better 
than Bob Wilson and his little stories of the things he saw 
about Grab Corners, at that time the concentration point of 
the town's activities. 

But just about the time "downtown" was beginning to 
quake under the honest truth of Bob's busy pen, the war came 

145 



THE YESTERDAYS 

our way and I touched elbows with him in days when shivers 
chased up our spinal cords and something besides green per- 
simmons puckered our lips until we couldn't whistle. 

ril tell you of a day when his shock of red hair turned 
pink. It was during the last days of the war when we were in 
the tar heel country with Sherman's army. I was in command 
of a detail from Carlin's division and Lieut. Wilson com- 
manded thirty men from the Twenty-first Michigan. 

It had been a day of combats with Dibbrell's Confederate 
cavalry. These fellows called themselves Dibbrell's cavaliers, 
gentlemen at the beginning of the war, for each one had a 
contraband to pick the gray backs off their shirt collars and 
shine their boots. Near sundown we drove the enemy away 
from an apple jack still on the Yadkin river. There was a 
loaded scow of barrels of the jack ready to float down the 
stream and on to Confederate supply depots. This was why 
the enemy was so slow in leaving. Apple jack is not sure 
death but a pint cup of it puts a man out of the fight for 
twenty hours. The lady of the mill told us the Confederates 
were fairly sleeping in their saddles as they forded the stream 
and disappeared over the hill. 

My orders for the day were to exterminate the outlaw, 
Peters, a terror to North Carolina Union men. We were with- 
in twenty miles of his home with men and horses exhausted 
but our only chance to win was by a night ride. Our lady 
gave me the directions; also, "be careful to shoot first, for 
Peters is an ornery cuss." 

Then came Wilson to say that our boys were so full of 
apple jack they could not mount, Wilson and the other lieu- 
tenants were the only men fit for duty. While they began 
knocking in the heads of the apple jack barrels Wilson and I 
mounted on fresh horses and rode away in the night, comforted 
with the thought that Dibbrell's men also were full of trouble. 

We arrived at the outlaw's home after daylight. A woman 
met us at the door. Inside there was a scurrying of feet not 
unlike a cross roads schoolhouse at recess. We entered, Colts 
in hand, prepared to have the first shot. On a bed in the main 
room was an old grandmother with six frightened children 

146 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

crowded against the wall behind her. No sign of a man. The 
woman declared her husband had gone to the hills on hearing 
that Sherman was in the state. But there was a cuiiain about 
the lower part of the bed and we both saw it move. Bob 
dropped on one knee and took aim, while I, with revolver in 
hand, crept up and yanked the curtain, expecting to face a 
gun. But there was only another half-dozen wild-eyed chil- 
dren, clad mostly in cotton shirts. 

That was a close call for both sides. With three years of 
army discipline behind us and all sorts of warfare, we wobbled 
out and ordered the largest boy to bring some drinking water 
from the spring. 

While the woman was baking us a pone we fed our horses 
at the corncrib and searched the place well for Peters. It 
was no wonder to us that he was an outlaw, for it was the 
most forsaken spot in the world. For miles on the return 
Wilson said not a word except "Captain, wish I had a canteen 
of that apple jack." 

Not long after this ride, Wilson, leading his command in a 
desperate charge, stopped a musket ball that sent him home 
to Michigan, where he lived only a few years, never fully re- 
covering from his wounds. 

In 1866 he was elected city clerk, but Mayor Wilder D. 
Foster still hailed him as Bob, as did nearly everybody, for 
they loved him, but those of us who slept in the leaves imder 
the trees, drinking from the same canteen with him, knew him 
best. 

His bits of poetry, stories, sarcasm and wit, like a bub- 
bling spring from a mountain side, ended only when he found 
the trail's end. 

Colonel Christofer W. Leffingwell and 
His Troop of Cavalry 

Col. Lefiingwell was a United States cavalryman with a 
record of active service in the Mexican war. He had the 
gaunt, sinewy frame that one sees portrayed by Frederick 
Remington in his types of plainsman soldier and he was a 
fine horseman. In the late fifties he organized a troop of 

147 



THE YESTERDAYS 

cavalry that was the admiration of all the young people of the 
town. 

There was abundant material available, plenty of willing 
men and many fine saddle horses. Also a good drill ground 
on the creek bottom lands on the west side of the river, south 
of Bridge-st. A creek ran along two sides and a slight pla- 
teau on the south made a fine reviewing stand for the public. 

In the annals of the state, so far as I know, there is no roster 
of Leffingwell's troop. There were three active companies of 
infantry and one of artillery recognized by the state, but there 
were two war clouds in the air — the rumblings from the Mor- 
mons in Utah and the black cloud south of Mason and Dix- 
on's line — and every man who had had experience in the army 
knew that the horse must play an important part in either 
conflict. Although assured that the state could not equip or 
recognize a cavalry troop at the time, the colonel's first call 
brought out thirty well mounted men. One drill brought ten 
files of fours into line. 

The colonel had sons enough of his own to make another 
file, but lacked the mounts. The town was just of a size for 
every person to know every other person, so we knew by name 
every man as they formed on the north side of the field, 
coimted fours and advanced company front toward the creek. 

The colonel gave his commands in a voice that could have 
controlled a full battalion. They were a peppery lot, too, 
on fine Morgan horses and were soon working from the walk 
to a trot, then fours left and gallop into line. 

The town took a great interest in the troop and all the 
ladies were on hand for drill, applauding and encouraging their 
heroes. 

One fine afternoon the command ''fours left" failed to be 
given, but the men were game, into the creek they went, some 
taking headers, others keeping their saddles but floundering 
in the mire. Only a man who has been in just such a fix can 
appreciate what took place before the troop could again be 
lined up before its commander. Then with the colonel in the 
lead they filed into the nearby river, dismounted and washed 
the mud from themselves and their much loved animals. 

148 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

That evening the troop held a symposium. As I was only 
a young boy I was not admitted and to this day do not know 
whether this charge was a blunder or a matter of discipline, 
but since all the minor officers went into the creek with the 
troop I imagine it was a blunder. 

The people of the city did not realize that these men were 
training to become leaders in the greatest cavalry battle 
the world has ever known. Nearly every man of the troop 
served either with Sheridan or Custer and they won rank from 
lieutenant to general. Many of them went down on fields 
where the sabers clashed. 

Col. Leffingwell returned to the regular service for the en- 
tire Civil war. His son, Henry, and I were comrades on the 
grand review in Washington at the close of the struggle. Some 
of the men of this troop that I recall are Miles Adams, George 
Gray, C. P. Babcock, Herb Backus, Stephen Ballard, Guild 
and Robert Barr, Charles Bolza, Byron Brewer, C. W. Calkins, 
C. W. Eaton, John Ely, H. W. Granger, Birney Hoyt, George 
Lee, Dan Littlefield, I. C. Smith, Silas Pierce, Peter Weber 
and Don Lovell. If their tales of the war could be told there 
would be pages of romance, loyalty to country, stories of days 
when chivalry was in the saddle and Americans were crossing 
swords with Americans. 

Of all that troop I recall but one man who seemed to have 
any creek bottom mud clinging to him. At home he had two 
fine saddle horses, but on foot he could run faster and further, 
to get away from the firing line, than any other man in the 
regiment in which it was my good fortune to serve. 

The old drill ground is now covered with factories. The 
creek has been lost in the "big ditch" and the ditch swallowed 
by the sewer, but the flag of the nation floats from the top 
of the staff. 

The Annals of Fulton Street Park 

I have before me as I write an old-time print of Samuel 
Dexter, who in 1832 came to Michigan from Herkimer, N. Y., 
as the leader of a party looking for lands where its members 
might settle and make homes. 

149 



THE YESTERDAYS 

Mr. Dexter journeyed beyond the Rapids, following the 
river and the shore of Lake Michigan as far as Chicago and 
then returning with his party located government land at the 
Rapids and Ionia. 

The following year he conducted sixty-one others, many 
of whom found Ionia the more attractive locality. 

Mr. Dexter's face is of a character that inspires one to 
follow his leadership, eyes that smile and the straightforward 
look in which one places confidence. 

Many of his descendants living in Grand Rapids and in 
Ionia county bear the same interesting features and have from 
the first days of the settlement of the valley been prominent 
in the development of Western Michigan. 

These people did not come as traders, but to create homes 
in the wilderness and build up the grand country we now love 
so well. They came as workers of the soil and their descend- 
ants are proud to say they came with Samuel Dexter. The 
wealth of the forests, on the other hand, was responsible for 
the speculators who flocked to Michigan for investments in 
pine timber lands. 

Mr. Dexter bought from the government a strip of land 
eighty rods wide and two miles long running north and west 
from the present corner of Monroe-av. and Division-av. The 
deeds of record were signed by President Andrew Jackson. 

The same year he met a commission appointed by the gov- 
ernor of Michigan to locate a county seat for Kent. The state 
commission selected, and Mr. Dexter and his wife, Anna, gave 
to the County of Kent the parcel of land which for many years 
has been called Fulton-st. park. At that time Monroe and 
Fulton-sts. were Indian trails. 

At one of the court trials years after, brought in an effort 
to annul the county's title, Zenas Windsor testified he saw 
Samuel Dexter drive the stake in the center of the square 
chosen. All the vicinity then was a forest of elm, oak and 
hickory, which in the eyes of land speculators had small com- 
mercial value but presented a level, well drained plateau. 

In this square, in the year 1838, the first courthouse was 
built, costing about $3,000. It is described as of Greek temple 

150 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

design, tall columns at the front, facing south, a cupola with 
a gilded ball on the top and bell inside, a hall through the cen- 
ter with a stairway at the east end leading to the courtroom 
above. On the first floor were the sheriff's living rooms and 
a jail room of planks and sheet iron ribbing. This building 
with all its records was burned in 1844. 

Then the coimty, being hard up, built a sort of cross roads 
schoolhouse, so small that the rapidly accumulating records 
were stored in any vacant room about the town until 1850. 

The county held undisputed use of the square and rented 
this building for any public gathering. One year it earned 
fifty dollars. The supervisors sold the foundation stones of 
the first building and until 1881 were at sea, very sick most of 
the time, casting up resolutions and committees and always 
too poor or timid to hazard an investment in a county court- 
house. During this period the county ''peddled fish," short 
changed the treasury by paying rent for a west side jail site 
and express charges on clothes baskets and flour barrels full of 
official records, some of which for convenience were stored in 
basement saloons. 

All thoughts of ever using the square for a county build- 
ing were abandoned. 

Annals of Fulton Street Park — II 

The Samuel Dexter plat as part of the city contains much 
besides boundaries. Its courthouse square, Fulton park, al- 
though but a block in the heart of the city, is rich in the lore 
of the county. Its history is a tale of entanglements well 
told in the official city, county and court records which disclose 
men sparring for financial and political advantage with a vim 
that would make interesting copy for the sport page of a Sun- 
day edition. 

In the. suits that were brought by different parties for pos- 
session of courthouse square after it had become valuable prop- 
erty, it was testified that Ezekiel Davis, supervisor for Grand 
Rapids, and Julius C. Abel, supervisor for Grandville, con- 
tracted to build the first courthouse for $3,000. 

But as typical of the early days the testimony of Robert 

151 



THE YESTERDAYS 

Hilton, one of the solid men of the town, is very interesting. 
It seems the county was hard up for cash and after much effort 
succeeded in borrowing $4,500 from the state. Mr. Hilton, 
who owned a single wagon and horse, was sent to Detroit for 
the money that the building might be erected. The roads 
were poor, the days wet and sultry and Mr. Hilton was nearly 
a week returning with the money which on arrival, was found 
to be mildewed. Moreover it was ^'wildcat" times and during 
the week the bank which issued the cat skins had failed. It 
was probable the printer could not keep up with the disbursing 
clerk. 

The county tried many years to have this debt canceled and 
more than doubled the original debt in attorney fees and trav- 
eling expenses before the cats ceased squalling, then submitted 
to the loss. 

There were many courthouse projects that did not favor 
this site, but the square was used for almost everything, in- 
cluding several county fairs, and one summer the city officials 
permitted a circus to set tents for a two days' show. The 
circus ring was where the first courthouse had stood. Tradi- 
tion reports complimentary tickets to the city ofiicials and 
five dollars to the treasury. 

The circus departed in the night and the nearby neighbors 
were a year in cleaning up the refuse. They dug up the hatchet 
for the aldermen of the west side and north ends of the city, 
who, to quiet them, passed an ordinance forbidding cattle and 
swine running at large in the public square. The animals 
evidently were not notified, for the ordinance was not observed. 
That however, was the last circus to dig a ring in the square. 
A short time after another council voted one hundred dollars 
to improve the park on condition that private subscription 
should fence it. 

It might have been a bit of sarcasm on the part of the 
county supervisors aimed at the want of business sense dis- 
played by the city supervisors which caused them to petition 
the state legislature to locate the county seat at Plainfield, 
then a lumber town near the mouth of the River Rouge. They 
sent a log rolling committee to the legislature and had not 

152 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Grand Rapids taken notice Plainfield would have been placed 
on the map. 

They did not get the county seat, but years later, did get 
Bert McAuley's clubhouse, which was much better than any 
county building for good cheer and chicken dinners. 

About this time one or two county fairs were held on the 
square. Bulls with nose rings were chained to the trees, blue 
ribbon swine rooted for acorns, golden pumpkins were dis- 
played under the oaks and country and city boys vied with 
one another in gingerbread devotion to the prettiest girl. 

Annals of Fulton Street Park— III 

My personal touch with the courthouse square began in 
1854 when as a boy I rambled across lots on the way to school 
on Fountain-st. In the center of the square were the founda- 
tion stones of the first courthouse, which had burned. 

Boys pointed to the place close by where a scaffold had 
been erected upon which a man was to be executed for killing 
an Indian, and we discussed the need of a scaffold when there 
were so many good oaks with low branches. 

The story was told that Thomas Gilbert, the sheriff, did not 
believe the man guilty and used his best efforts to have the law 
of capital punishment changed. He was slow in having the 
scaffold finished. The execution was to be a public affair and 
many people came in from the country only to be disappointed, 
for the governor commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. 
Later, Mr. Gilbert foimd evidence to prove the man was inno- 
cent and he was pardoned. 

In Civil war days, rough stands were erected in the square 
where war talks and songs inspired the boys and men. On 
these rude platforms Mrs. Lavancha Stone Shedd, Mrs. Serepta 
Bliss Wenham, Miss Jan Ringuette Malloch and many other 
well known women led the singing. 

There were bonfires, about which gathered the boys and 
girls whose fathers were marching away to battle for the 
Union. That indeed was the place where the people rallied 
around the flag. 

In the centennial year a fac-simile of the La Framboise 

153 



THE YESTERDAYS 

cabin, which in 1806 was standing near the Council Pine on 
the west bank of the river, was built on the southeast corner 
of the square. It was carried out in detail even to the coon and 
fox skins tacked on the outside, but the cabin was neglected 
and served mainly as a place for the boys to re-enact war 
dances and shoot arrows at neighbors' pigs and chickens. 

For many years the square received no attention other than 
being a battle-ground for the city and county officials. Citizens 
petitioned for permission to fence and clean it up, build walks 
and plant trees. Through the determination of Thomas D. 
Gilbert to save the park the authorities gave him the care of 
it for two years. To him we owe the maples as well as those 
which were about Monument park. At his own expense he 
hired John Steketee with his yoke of oxen to plow the square 
for two seasons, paying eight dollars each year and taking 
great care that the trees were not injured. To subdue the 
weeds and level the surface he planted potatoes one year and 
sowed oats another, later plowing the oats under for fertilizer. 

After Mr. Gilbert had it in good shape the council ordered 
the marshal to repair the fence and then to put locks on the 
gates. Young ladies with their beaus who wished to walk 
through the park climbed the fence — no small adventure in 
hoop skirt days. 

Mr. Gilbert was an officer and stockholder of the gas com- 
pany and about this time the council ordered the gas-meter 
removed and substituted kerosene lamps for summer evenings. 

As Mr. Gilbert could get no park seats, he paid the marshal 
for capping the fence with strips which made a sort of roosting 
place for young people and soon the fence was worn out. In 
the year 1881 for some reason the county supervisors replaced 
the fence and five days later the city marshal tore it up, leaving 
the post holes for night walkers to fall into. Then Mr. Gilbert 
hired and paid a man to keep cattle and swine from again de- 
stroying the grass and trees. With his own hands he set out 
young trees, carrying water in pails to moisten their roots. 
They were his children and were protected and nourished with 
every care. He had a vision of the future, the day that is here 
now. 

154 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Annals of Fulton Street Park — IV 

In the early platting of the city, Monroe-st., now avenue, 
was named as a compliment to President James Monroe, whose 
home on Prince-st., New York City, is now marked with a 
bronze table but occupied as an Italian rag picker's warehouse. 
Jefferson-av. was named in honor of Thomas Jefferson, Fulton- 
st. as a compliment to Robert Fulton, the inventor of steam- 
boats, also a resident of New York. He never, so far as we 
know, placed his feet on Michigan soil. 

There was an early settler in the town named Fulton, but 
since he came here after the first plats were made and was 
noted only for the gingerbread he baked at a shop in the 
bend of lower Monroe-av., it is not likely that he had any 
claim on Fulton-st. 

The slogan, ''Grand Rapids is a Good Place to Live," is a 
fact. The city has been made a good place through the in- 
fluence and generosity of its public spirited men and women, 
some of whom we have honored. 

We have the John Ball, the Garfield, Comstock, Campau, 
Harrison, Sinclair and Wilcox parks; the Robinson road, the 
Burton Heights, the Hodenpyl woods, the Richmond hills, the 
Mary Waters field, the Blodgett and Butterworth hospitals, 
the Stocking and Widdicomb schools and many other places 
are or should be bearing the names of those who have made 
Grand Rapids a good place to live. 

It is not too late to change the name of Fulton-st. park to 
that of Samuel Dexter and thus honor the almost first settler 
who gave that square of ground to the Coimty of Kent for the 
benefit of all its people. Mr. Fulton could still have his street 
— a very creditable possession. 

A simple authoritative resolution of the city commission, 
one that would call for no appropriation of public money, 
would be the means of preserving this name. 

We have cause for rejoicing that in 1896, the bronze bust 
of Thomas D. Gilbert, a gift of the National City Bank and the 
Grand Rapids Gas Co., two local business enterprises which 
he was instrumental in establishing, was placed in the park 

155 



THE YESTERDAYS 

beneath the maples which he had planted and so lovingly 
cared for. 

Hundreds of boys, young and old, listened to President 
James B. Angell's story of the man, from the time he captained 
a pole boat on Grand river with Indians for a crew, to the day 
when the bronze bust was placed in the park. 

I am indebted to Miss Belle M. Tower's true history of 
Fulton-st. park, contributed to Sophie De Marsac chapter, 
Daughters of the American Revolution, 1910, for many of the 
facts recorded in these annals to which I have added my per- 
sonal memories. Miss Tower is a granddaughter of Samuel 
Dexter. 

The Elm Trees 

An article in one of our daily papers of recent date states 
that no less an authority than Michaux — a tree lover of nation- 
al fame — ranks the common white elm of our country as one of 
its most magnificent trees. From coast to coast, from Canada's 
border to the gulf, it is unsurpassed, whether in forest, open 
field or at the roadside. In New England parkways and college 
grounds they have sacred memories and are guarded with all 
the care that man can give. 

In days gone by there were some wonderful groves of white 
elm on the west side of Grand river, extending along the river 
from Sixth street to Mill Creek and one grove south of Fulton 
street with both dome and umbrella tops. All about the valley 
were groups, or single fine specimens, with the turban and 
plume tops. 

I recall the groves in the glory of their autumn yellow, 
when their light rivaled the sun in the Indian summer haze. 

In the early days of the country, the elm was often the 
range guide to homesteader, surveyors, or the Indian. Before 
the pier and range lights marked the channel to Black lake a 
single huge elm guided the sailor. The Indian by the bending 
of a branch often indicated a direction and many of the strange 
shaped limbs of the river bottom trees were the work of sur- 
veyors or early trail markers and have served for years to 
indicate the boundary of a range. As the twig was bent so 
the tree grew. 

156 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Standing like a lone sentinel on the range of the Cascade 
Hills Golf Club is a grand fountain-topped white elm and 
we trust it will be an honorary member of long standing in 
that organization. 

More than fifty years ago when Bostwick street hill was 
being graded there were in the roadway in front of the homes 
of James and Ezra Nelson, two very fine elm trees. Their 
branches entwining made wonderful shade for the street and a 
place for swings which the firemen of the hook and ladder 
company suspended for the boys and girls of the vicinity. 

When this grading was started the city council in a fit of 
mental aberration directed the ''highway man" to remove the 
trees from the roadway. A storm of protest came from all 
sides, but seemed to have little effect on the council and when 
it came to a showdown between the highway men or trees, the 
Nelsons, who were full sized men, loaded their guns with rock 
salt and unground black pepper and stood guard day and 
night. 

Mr. E. D. G. Holden also came to the rescue with a poem 
which was printed and scattered far and wide. His listening 
ear caught the murmuring of the brother elms and this is a part 
of what they said: 

''Why, yes, dear chum, I mind it well 

With red men camping here 

Beneath our shade when time had made 

Our forms a landmark dear. 

We saw the scalp dance and the love 

Of Indian maids for braves 

Who made no threats to slash us down. 

Oh, it will be a sorry day 

If they should cut us down, 

Who are the oldest settlers now 

In all the busy town. 

We never yet an ill have done, 

The good we love the best. 

And pleased are we when children pause 

Upon the walk to rest 

With welcome shade caressed." 

157 



THE YESTERDAYS 

So the ax was exchanged for shovels, the ground about the 
trees was rounded up, the roadway graded on either side and 
today we still have the Bostwick, often termed by the old resi- 
dents the Nelson, elms gracing the city highway. 

The Blendon Hills 

About eighteen miles below the Rapids, on the south side 
of the river, are the Blendon Hills, in the early days noted for 
their forests of oaks and pine. 

The lumbermen went through the pines on some tracts, 
selecting only the best of the trees and from these only the 
clear stock, making a jungle with the cuttings on the ground 
and leaving a maze of tote roads and blind trails. As if by 
magic these cut-over lands were quickly covered with a growth 
of high-bush blackberry brush, loaded every season with de- 
licious fruit. 

Many townspeople went berrying, paddling by canoe or 
going down the river in the steamboats. Sometimes parties 
formed with an outfit for camping out, and over the campfire 
put up tubs and jars of blackberry jam; others stayed over 
night and returned home to preserve the fruit. 

One day eight or ten of us twelve-year-old boys paddled 
away from the yellow warehouse with a two or three-day 
outfit — one tent, blankets and baskets of rations, a butcher 
knife or two to kill bears or maybe Indians — ^the bravest bunch 
of boys that ever said goodbye to the mothers who had helped 
carry the duffle to the dock. 

It was afternoon when the fleet landed at Blendon and to 
carry everything up the river bank, set up the tent and get the 
first meal was a great event. Some of the boys ate up half of 
their two days' rations that first meal. They were busy cut- 
ting hemlock for beds and gathering wood for a campfire until 
nearly dark, when an Indian we knew about town landed in 
his canoe and while he cooked a fish over our fire for his supper, 
told the crowd a bear story — a real thriller. He assured us that 
bears lived on blackberries and that all the pine slashings were 
full of them. While he talked he sandwiched in a loaf of our 
bread with his fish. When he left, Eddie Morrison and Henry 

158 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Lefiingwell fixed up the fire. We got inside, tied down the 
flaps and tested our knives, 

Billie Westerhouse was used to sleeping between feather 
ticks and the hemlock boughs didn't appeal to him, but he 
finally got settled under the blankets just as all the ov/ls be- 
tween Haire's Landing and Lamont began to hoot and call. One 
little kid began to cry for his mother, but the finishing touch 
to the crowd was the falling of a rotten basswood tree a few 
rods from the tent. Just why it came down on that night of 
all others is not to be explained, but sun-up found us on the 
way home with a fine load of stories of the bears and Indians 
who had tried to sever our earthly connections, but never a 
blackberry for the mothers. 

The Fitch family, living at the corner of Stocking and 
Bridge-sts., were berrying in Blendon Hills, when Cordelia 
— as I recall, about a sixteen-year-old girl — became lost in 
the slashings. The alarm went out and for three days all the 
campers were searching. The steamboat reported at the Rapids 
and every available skiff came loaded with helpers, among them 
several Indians. 

I hunted with one of the Indian boys and we got caught 
several miles from camp as night came on. He crawled under 
a small cedar and fastened all the boughs together and we 
slept as comfortably as in a tent. The third day Cordelia was 
seen by a steamboat crew on the river bank fourteen miles be- 
low Blendon, though ''wild like deer," as one Indian explained. 

She disappeared again in the forest and it was only after a 
race that she was captured, her clothing torn to rags on the 
brambles and briers. She lived to become the bride of Ed- 
ward L. Briggs and to furnish our Kent Scientific Museum with 
a fine collection of shells and rare treasures from many lands. 

The Blendon Pines and Oaks 

In the early days of the settlement of the Grand river 
country, eastern capitalists were told of the wealth of Michi- 
gan forests, to be obtained for a song. 

The pine was what the speculator sought and many per- 
sonally or through agents bought up vast tracts. 

159 



THE YESTERDAYS 

John Ball had little money of his own but was the trusted 
agent for many. He was a born woodsman and the happiest 
days of his long and useful life were spent in companionship 
of the trees. 

In one of his early adventures, he sought a forest of pine 
reported to be south of the Grand river, between the Rapids 
and Lake Michigan, which only Indians and trappers had 
invaded; a region of rivers, lakes, swamps and level plateaus 
where the tree tops were so dense that the sun rarely pene- 
trated. The surveys were largely guesswork. In 1836 Mr. 
Ball sought this tract but found a wonderful forest of oak and 
in a three days' tramp only an occasional lonesome pine. This 
oak covered the hills known later as Blendon, eighteen miles 
down Grand river. Then suddenly the pines were before him. 

Mr. Ball at once entered at the land office, probably the 
one at Ionia, a claim to forty-one eighty-acre lots, paying the 
entry fee and other requirements. He reached, however, the 
limits of his capital and was finally compelled to forfeit his 
payments and other parties secured the lands. 

Several years later Robert Medler, ship builder, needed 
oak for the yard at Mill Point, near the Haven. Men went 
into this oak forest and helped themselves. Standing trees 
had so little value that no one objected. In fact, there was 
only the government to object and its agents were far away. 
The logs on the high banks of the river when rolled into the 
water sank like so much iron. To float them a pine was pinned 
to either side and they were floated to the shipyards. There 
the builders claimed them to be live oak and Capt. Flint, U. S. 
naval contractor, accepted them as such in the construction 
of the U. S. bark Morgan. 

I do not know the origin of the name Blendon but the 
Blendon Lumber Co. was formed and a rush made to secure 
the oaks. Logging camps, sawmills, landing docks and ship- 
yards sprang up and the entire country boomed. Pioneer 
farmers found a ready market for everything they raised. 

Two-masted lumber schooners towed up the river by tugs 
received the lumber direct from the mill, towed back to the 

160 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

lake and sailed away to the sea. Often rafts of long masts 
were towed which eventually fitted ocean ships. 

The men who came out of the east to lumber this new 
country were equal to the trees they made war upon. 

When the Civil war called, Alvin C. Litchfield, manager of 
the Blendon company, captained one of the companies and 
imder Custer won the star of a general. Out of this country 
went the Brennans, Weatherwaxes, Lowings, Boyntons and so 
many others that there were none left on the farms or in the 
mills. The quietude of Sunday settled over the land. 

After war days, the echoes of the ax and saw, the chanty 
of the river man and the farmer were heard again until the last 
oak and pine disappeared. In their stead came the cabin, the 
apple tree, and the honey bee. And finally came the man in 
the speed wagon, all unconscious of the past were it not for the 
stump fences which say so little but mean so much to the few 
who understand. 

Mr. Foster, one of the six-foot lumbermen who served with 
the Old Third infantry, is living in the city today. He can 
take you to a pine stump six feet across the top, the living tree 
of which was more than one hundred feet to the first limb. 

The Walnut Forest 

There were three classes of men who came from the east to 
Michigan in the early days. The settler who came to make a 
home — he was the man who came to stay, the foundation of 
the state; the trader who sought a fortune in the wild life of 
the forest, the furs of the beaver and his kin; the speculator 
who recognized the value of the great wilderness of pine forest. 

It seemed as if all the wealth in eastern money centers was 
brought here to be invested in the pine. 

River bottom lands were thickly grown with walnut, but- 
ternut and great elms; ridges were covered with oak and 
cherry, and the plateaus with maple and all sorts of valuable 
trees, but the speculator saw little value in them as compared 
with the pine. The hemlock was a poor relation and treated 
with small courtesy. 

As late as the fifties, the present site of the Wyoming car 

161 



THE YESTERDAYS 

shops was a forest of butternut trees growing so thickly that 
often it was fifty feet to the first limb. After a sharp frost the 
ground was brown with nuts, on the opposite side of the river 
were forests of giant walnut. 

A settler in order to clear a place to grow corn slashed 
these walnut in tangled masses, felling them across each other 
and, using the old term ''niggered," burned them into sections. 
They were too large to saw into lengths. 

Great clear logs were split into fence rails; others were 
hewed into barns sills. In the tree tops were huge limb crotches 
which had a value if sliced into veneers. Men came and 
hewed some of these free from sap and bark. With oxen they 
were taken to the river, loaded on scows and floated to the 
Haven, then by other ways transported to Boston, where fur- 
niture men worked them up. Most of the clear body of these 
trees were burned in the fields to get rid of them. 

There were several gunsmiths then in the Rapids. Soloman 
Pierce and his sons had cords of fine walnut burl gun stocks 
and seasoned them in the yard outside to acquire the amber 
color so sought for by sportsmen. 

But the walnut was never so grand as when it stood in the 
green woodland, its wide spreading top far in the sky, its al- 
most black bark coating dark against the background of an 
oak grown hillside. 

Wise men of those days warned against the destruction of 
the forests, but the near-sighted believed Michigan could never 
clear away the wilderness. 

The Indian looked upon the waste as a crime. He inher- 
ited a reverence for all trees, assigned to them passions and 
believed in a close connection between human lives and trees. 
When the wigwam was built a branch from a nearby tree was 
placed at the doorway so the spirit of the forest would be with 
its inmates. 

In money value Michigan lost more in fifty years than can 
ever be regained and if it was in the plans of the Man-i-to that 
the great lakes country should make the furniture of the world 
the early settler and the lumberjack certainly played a chuck- 
a-luck game with the treasury. 

162 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

The Black Hills 

In the south part of the city is a range of hills, with the 
river front on the west, Plaster creek, Wyoming yards and 
their great shops on the south, the Pere Marquette tracks run- 
ning around the base of the hill on the east, the Peaceful val- 
ley with its many factories, the Michigan railway bridge and 
the great hive of industry toward the city on the north. 

When I was a boy this river range hill was the home of the 
Ottawa Indian chief, Mack-e-bee-messy, which translated is 
Black Bird. So this hill was to the Indian ''Black Bird's Hill." 
Its wide plateau was covered with a forest of black oak and 
the white man coming in called the range Black Oak hills. 
From these terms it simply settled into plain Black hills, and 
so it is known today. 

The Indians had a way of burning the leaves late each 
autumn, as they lay over the ground, the flames taking the 
lower branches of the trees and all the summer growth. When 
the spring rains began the new season the forest was a sylvan 
glory. On level ground one could see any moving thing a mile 
away. 

The river bottom and all low lying places were thickly 
grown with elm, basswood and water maple, with dogwood, 
thorn and crabapple. The side hill facing the river and much 
of the plateau was strewn with great water-washed granite 
boulders, that on the northwest end, spread into the stream 
forming "Stony Point," which challenged the canoe man to 
combat with eddies and swirls. 

Chief Black Bird, when the treaty was made with the In- 
dians for the Grand River valley, lived in the summer in his 
wigwam on the northwest point of the hill, far above the river. 
In the winter he retired to the shelter of a thick grove of 
spruce standing about where the Nichols & Cox mills are now 
located. 

After the treaty, the white man fenced in the hills with 
black walnut rails. The granite boulders were split into build- 
ing stone. Townspeople, attracted by the beautiful woods, 
came to picnic and gather wild flowers or honey from the store 
of wild bees. 

163 



THE YESTERDAYS 

While gathering mushrooms in the north woods not long 
ago, an old-time resident of the valley said she could tell me 
of the most wonderful place in all the world for mushrooms 
and then explained how to reach Black hills. I could not con- 
vince her that the city had covered the old playground. 

The oaks had no commercial value and as pasture the land 
did not pay taxes, so the man who had bought the hills from 
the government, seeing the people congregating there every 
pleasant day, offered it to the city for park purposes at farm- 
land price. Our city fathers derided the owner for trying to 
unload undesirable land on the people. Months of argument 
failed to convince the aldermen that other years were on the 
road to town. 

Later Mr. Delos A. Blodgett, unable to stand for the de- 
struction of trees, flowers and rocks, determined the city should 
have the hills as his gift. The price, one hundred thousand dol- 
lars, three times what the city previously was asked to pay, 
was agreed upon with the agent, but the owner, sore over the 
action of past officials or, as others claimed, profiteering, de- 
manded fifty thousand more. The demand was so unjust that 
it was emphatically rejected. 

Then came years when the hills gave shelter to tramps and 
hoboes and the undesirables of the country and it was not 
safe for flower and forest lovers. 

This was forty years ago. Today the east plateau of the 
range is well covered with homes; the west has still a growth 
of black oak, but the boulders are in foundation stones all 
over town. The smoke of factory stacks drifts over the bluffs 
and the haze of Black Bird's wigwam fire is only a memory. 

The River Rouge 

Fur traders, trappers and French-Canadians with the spirit 
of adventure, early explored the valley of the 0-wash-ta-nong, 
following the river and its tributaries. 

Many of these men descended to the level of the Indian 
in the habits of wild life, but retained the dialects and mem- 
ory of home places, which cropped out in the designation of 

164 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

towns and rivers. Many married squaws who were their mates 
for life, shared in their toil and travel. 

Thus the French in River Rouge or River Red, coming into 
the 0-wash-ta-nong — ^the Grand — near Plainfield, may have 
been inspired by the wilderness of painted foliage where each 
tree and flower gave different tinting to the hills and river bot- 
tom lands. 

Indian traditions told of the white men who came each sea- 
son with canoes loaded with furs from this stream of many 
beaver ponds. 

These trappers told at the Rapids of the wilderness of great 
trees of the pine and oak, of the many lakes between the hills 
where the wild goose nested. From its source in the rice 
swamps the river ran a wild race between the hills to its blend- 
ing with the Grand. 

When the rush of the lumberman started toward this stream 
it was not unlike that of the gold seekers of 1849 to the golden 
west. River bank trees were chopped into the stream and, 
beaver like, formed sawmill dams and ponds. Rude settle- 
ments and lumber towns sprang up over night. 

Near the river mouth, imder a wonderful bluff overlooking 
the Grand and facing the morning sun, the Indians had a bur- 
ial ground where the great spirit could find the dead and guide 
them on the home road. 

Here upon the high plateau the "Mon-daw-min" — Indian 
corn — was planted, an ear being placed in the grave at the 
burial time for food on the long journey. 

Plainfield seemed the most appropriate name for the town 
that sprang up here — and so it is today — but for a long time 
it was called by men in sarcastic mood, Grogtown. To oblit- 
erate this term it was given the name Austerlitz for a while. 

Following the Rouge up-stream one encountered the mill 
town of Gibraltar and then Jericho. At both places there was 
grand water power. As fast as the pines were cut away the 
land was cleared and platted and our leading statesmen hon- 
ored in naming of the streets. There were several other mill 
towns before Laphamville — ^named from an early settler — ^was 
reached, a village of blessed memory, so beautiful in its peace- 

165 



THE YESTERDAYS 

ful valley. Before the days of highway bridges people crossed 
the stream at the Rocky ford. Then in later years the name 
was changed to Rockford. Although it was a mill town it be- 
came a home place. The forest disappeared but the charm 
of the river and the hills held captive many of the pioneers. 

Following the winding river it was a long paddle to the 
home of that good man, Dr. Sexton, who was an angel of mercy 
to all the inhabitants of cabins and mill shacks of northern 
Kent. A ''God bless you" often paid the bill. It was all the 
pioneer could offer. 

At the last mill site on the river sprang up the town of 
Gougeburg. It never had or needed any other name. Besides 
its logging crews there were two lawyers, said by the lumber- 
jacks to be hiding from the sheriff. When not tipping the jug 
they wove shingles and in public spirited way helped the town 
live up to its name. 

If a man succeeded in escaping from Gougeburg he reached 
beyond to the Meyers settlement, lying between the river and 
Camp lake ; Hiram, Tom, Ben and Andrew, four brothers, three 
of them with large families, had come to stay and were making 
farms. It was often said that no man ever went away from 
Hiram Meyers' homestead hungry and that Auntie Nicholas 
Emmons in their cabin on Camp lake served the most delicious 
fritters and maple syrup that man or boy ever tasted. 

At the far end of Camp lake was Snow's tavern. From here 
crows flying north carried haversacks with frogs for rations, 
for it was the jumping off place until the trail reached the Mus- 
kegon river. 

During the forties and the fifties this River Rouge country 
was a lumberman's battlefield. Harry Ives, a Grand Rapids 
millwright, with gangs of men packed their tools and supplies 
from one mill site to another. 

Only a fraction of the logs were sawed in the mills. In 
one season Job Whipple, a captain of the river men and now 
living in Grandville, floated 165,000,000 feet of logs out of the 
river to the mills at the Haven. Many of these logs were so 
large they were three years reaching their destination, hung 

166 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

up on shoals and driftwood jams, their water bleached sides 
like ghosts haunting the streams. 

Only good grade logs were put into the streams, all other 
were left for forest fires. From one forty-acre lot near Rock- 
ford one million feet of logs were cut that scaled two and one- 
half logs to the thousand feet. When the battle with the for- 
est waii over the mill towns vanished and the river men and 
woodsmen began hoeing corn in fields fenced with stumps. 

I never climb one of these fences without looking for a cant- 
hook or peavie, but find only bittersweet. 

Prospect Hill 

Prospect hill of pioneer days was a ridge of clay and gravel, 
evidently of glacial formation, running from Monroe-st. north 
beyond Lyon. Its height was about seventy feet above the 
river bed, it was beautifully wooded and made a striking fea- 
ture in the landscape. It was all leveled in the grading of the 
city and the Peninsular club, the Michigan Trust building and 
the City Hall are in line with and stand on what was formerly 
the base of the hill. 

Along in the fifties Prospect hill was the playground of the 
uptown boys, even into city days, the Lyon and Pearl-sts. 
slopes were favorite coasting places for boys and girls. 

There were several ponds about its base, the best one fed 
by springs was on the east side of the hill. Here Gay Perkins, 
Charlie Leonard and Dan Tower skated in winter and manned 
pirate crafts in summer, using garden gates for raft foundation 
and fence pickets for propellers. 

One of the first men to build a home on the hill was George 
Martin, or as he was known later. Judge Martin. He had a 
large, fine frame house on the crest of the hill with porches on 
three sides. From the porch on the west side we could look 
through the trees and in the evening watch the wigwam fires 
on the islands and the jack lights of the fishermen spearing in 
the river rapids. 

The Martins had three boys, Billie, George and Charlie, and 
one girl. May, and they were very cordial to visitors. 

The house was usually overflowing with guests. The boys 

167 



THE YESTERDAYS 

made their own sleds at the shipyard forge, using scrap lum- 
ber from Deacon Haldane's cabinet shop. If I remember cor- 
rectly they made the first pair of bobs used on the hill, walnut 
runners and a black cherry board, probably thrown into the 
culls because there was a knot or two in it. 

There was considerable trouble over the timber on the hill 
and the strife over the honey salvaged from several bee trees 
reached as far as the justice courts. Charlie Martin fell from 
a tree where he was trying to capture a coon and broke his leg. 
There was a near lawsuit over the girdling of some black cherry 
trees, the fact that their bark soaked in a whisky keg made a 
tonic for warding off ague being no excuse for the vandalism. 

There were many beautiful specimens of oak, hickory and 
basswood trees on the hill and about the base on all sides 
many great elms and butternuts. 

Among the guests at the Martin house, was Daniel Thomp- 
son, a writer of novels. He was a lawyer, but did not work at 
the trade. While visiting on Prospect hill he wrote ''May Mar- 
tin," in compliment to the little daughter of the house; "The 
Green Mountain Boys," ''The Gold Diggers" and several other 
stories for boys and girls. Prospect hill featured in many of 
his tales of the wilderness. He seemed to find the village full 
of interesting people and made many friends. 

Though the ridge gradually was leveled, it was 1890 before 
the last of it was carted away. The banging of a shotgun 
through that district today would cause more consternation to 
the street loiterer than it ever did to the squirrels and rabbits 
of that happy forest of childhood days. 

Professor Edward W. Chesebro 

There is in Oak Hill cemetery a monument erected to the 
memory of Prof. Edward W. Chesebro by his pupils, bearing 
this inscription: 

"His was a teacher's heart 
With zeal that never tired. 
And thousand souls beat higher 
By his single soul inspired." 

168 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

The first school I attented on coming to Grand Rapids was 
on Fountain-st. hill, the High school of the town. It had three 
study and six recitation rooms. There was no basement to 
the building. It was heated by wood stoves. Drinking water 
was brought from a side hill spring in a pail and all the pupils 
drank from the same dipper. 

Mr. Chesebro was the principal and with rare good judg- 
ment selected the teachers who assisted him. The years in 
which he served were a trying time in the history of the 
schools. The town was growing rapidly, but no funds could 
be gained to build and equip buildings. The small salary of 
teachers was often paid by school orders, passed at the stores 
at a discount or in payment for merchandise at a high profit. 

The country school teacher who boarded around the dis- 
trict as part pay for service, had an advantage over the city 
teacher. The farmer as a general rule had plenty of food. 

The crowded school rooms, poorly ventilated, and heated 
by wood stoves, with board floors where scores of muddy boots 
left a trail of soil, were not a pleasant atmosphere in which 
to work. The entire burden of school management fell on Mr. 
Chesebro's shoulders. Men and women of today could hardly 
be found to do the tasks imposed upon the principal and his 
assistants. 

He literally wore himself out in establishing the founda- 
tion that others have built upon and was laid away in 1862, 
not surviving the pioneering days. 

The old playgrounds and my old playmates, come clearly 
to my mind. There was only an acre of sand lot on the sand 
hill bluffs for play groimds and half this space was piled high 
with wood for the stoves. The girls managed to get in a few 
swings but most of the place looked like a prairie dog village, 
where various clans of boys dug in tunnels and made fortifica- 
tions for their battles. 

This congestion led to some of the boys going outside the 
fence to the bluffs, even as far from school as the present site 
of Crescent-pk. Here in a bunch of oak grubs, Richard Blum- 
rich, Henry Lefiingwell, and Henry Rounds tunneled through 
a point in the hill and felt they had a safe retreat from any 

169 



THE YESTERDAYS 

hostile clan. There one noon Henry Rounds, who was mostly 
legs, was caught by a cave-in and only his feet left in sight. 
His mates began frantically pulling at the legs. A Dutch- 
man who owned the lot, advised them to wait while he ran to 
the brewery for a shovel, but the boys with bare hands, suc- 
ceeded in digging him out and by the time the shovel was at 
hand every known way of getting sand out of a cave man and 
air into him, was being applied. 

The boys were an hour late and when they gave their 
reason Prof. Chesebro called all the boys of the class to the 
study room and gave them a life saving talk. He did not 
approve of caves on the bluffs but he commended the bravery 
of the boys who had stood by their playmate. From that 
time on he made a stand for better playgrounds. 

Grand Rapids could well afford the tribute of a Chesebro 
avenue leading to a modern school and playground. 

The Stone Schoolhouse 

Along in the fifties it became necessary to enlarge the 
schoolhouse on the west side of the river, so the wise men of 
the school board decided to build large enough for all time. 
River stone was plenty and cost only the digging and hauling; 
building lumber was a drug on the market and good mechanics 
one dollar per day of ten hours. 

The school was built where the Union High now is. The 
top, or third floor, was used for the Armory ; each lower floor 
had a large study room and two recitation rooms. In the large 
rooms were two box stoves — one on the girls' and one on the 
boys' side of the room — which burned two-foot wood usually 
carried upstairs by the boys. The tuition of the country boys 
was often paid with wood. 

The stoves were in one corner of the room and the pipe 
ran to the other corner overhead, so no heat was lost. When 
the men drilled in the Armory above, the vibrations parted the 
pipe joints and the soot sifted down upon the pupils of Prof. 
Boardman Taylor's night school; special classes for spelling 
and penmanship were very popular because it gave the boys- 
a chance to beau the girls home. 

170 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

There was no janitor at first and when one was supplied, 
he was known as the moderator and assisted the principal 
when he got hold of a boy he could not manage single handed. 

Everything was lovely in the spring and fall, when the 
older boys worked outside, but in the winter when they came 
in from the country the principal went armed with a six-foot 
hickory pointer. The moderator earned his salary, for in the 
battles the stove and all its pipe frequently came down. The 
small boys crawled under the desks and the older ones tried 
to be neutral. They wanted to see the country chaps downed 
but could not forget that the same hickory pointer often beat 
the dust out of their own trousers. Some of the principals 
were short term men, the length of service depending upon 
their muscle. Prof. Ballard, Prof. Clark, and Prof. Kent 
stayed the longest, but they really applied tact along with 
zeal and stick. 

The schoolyard, inclosed by a board fence with a post 
entrance at either corner — not so much to keep the pupils in 
as to keep the cows and pigs out — was one city block in size 
except for the home of Mrs. Stephen Cool, who owned two 
lots at the corner of Turner and Fourth. She had declined to 
give these up but the board was not much concerned since the 
nearest well and supply of water was on her ground. She 
had a fine vegetable garden and was a lover of flowers and 
chickens. As the school grew her corner became quite a 
problem. She was at war with the boys all the time. They 
batted their balls through the windows, trampled the garden 
down and that sweet two hundred-pound woman was worried 
to a frazzle but could not be persuaded to sell out and go to 
a quieter locality. 

All the school ground west of the building was piled high 
with cord wood for the winter fire. There on the top of the 
high piled wood the little girls made houses and played with 
their dolls. One of their innocent stories of a cave in the 
wood pile revealed a fraud perpetrated by a south end farmer, 
many cords short in his contract to the city. 

West of Broadway was swamp, with a thick tangle of 
alders and other marsh growth, through which ran a tame sort 

171 



THE YESTERDAYS 

of a creek where frogs held concerts. The boys who loved 
adventure cleaned out the snakes, but the crop of frogs seem- 
ingly grew no less though many found their way into the 
schoolrooms in coat pockets and were let loose to hop about 
on the girls' side. In this swamp the boys made robber dens 
in accordance with the fiction of the day. 

There was a woman who had a home on the bank of the 
creek above Fifth-st. In a willow thicket below her house 
some girls innocently built a dam which blocked the water and 
drowned all the chickens. Of course, the engineering feat was 
laid to boys. I always liked that woman, but not well enough 
to give to her the names of the girls who played in that 
heaven of mud, water and pollywogs. 

It seems to me there never was a schoolhouse with so 
many natural attractions for the boys and girls, but along with 
the years came the big ditch and swallowed the creek and the 
dump of the city buried the alders, willows and cattails. Mrs. 
Cool's garden, chickens and pump were outlawed. The old 
stone school was condemned in 1872 as a worn-out building and 
unsafe for the increasing numbers. While replacing it school 
was held in a long wooden shed built the length of the Third- 
st. side. The rooms were so exactly alike that small children 
became confused and had to be escorted to their places. The 
third school now stands on this location and enrolls more 
children than lived in all the city at the time the old stone 
school was built. Above the swamp where Dick built a 
robber's roost with a dime novel for a guide, his great-grand- 
son is taught ''how to play" and teeters on a board with a 
caretaker to see he does not fall off. The stone school that 
seemed built for eternity has become but a legend. 

Rev. James Ballard, Schoolmaster 

Many of the ''gray locks" of today recall with great affec- 
tion James Ballard, teacher, preacher, and orator, who came 
to Michigan from Vermont in 1838. He started to clear a 
farm in Paris township, but wrestling with log heaps and hunt- 
ing stray cows was not congenial work for a college-bred man. 
He soon became an all around man in the community — school- 

172 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

master, Baptist minister, temperance orator and at one time 
was a candidate for the legislature on a dry ticket, in a very 
wet district, receiving sixteen votes. 

In the early fifties, he became the first principal of the two 
schools of the village, but not until 1858 did I make acquaint- 
ance with his hickory ruler as a pupil in the stone school on 
the west side. 

In those days boys as well as steers were broken in with 
a gad. Mr. Ballard carried his goose-quill pen behind his ear 
and one day he caught me laughing at his efforts to keep his 
long black hair and the quill in place while he applied the ruler 
to Henry Goodsell. He called me out to hold the quill while 
he finished Henry and then his keen eyes twinkled while I got 
a bit of medicine myself. 

One of his favorite punishments was to make an unruly boy 
sit on the girls' side of the room. I don't know what I did 
to arouse his wrath, but one day I was commanded to go sit 
with red-headed Emily Pettibone. Emily's father owned a fine 
piece of woods on West Bridge-st. in about the present locality 
of the St. James' church and she of the sunset locks was one 
of my best chums — as Mr. Ballard soon discovered, so the 
order was rescinded to bringing a pail of drinking water from 
Mrs. Cool's well. 

For all the strict discipline he was friendly with the boys. 
The Armory at that time was on the third floor of the school- 
house and on stormy days the older boys, with Mr. Ballard for 
umpire, put on boxing gloves and he played with the same pep 
with which he ruled. 

One of the interesting things I recall of that school was 
the attendance for a short time of four Indian boys from 
Bass River. They spoke a dialect of Indian and French with 
very little English and it became my duty to work out on 
the blackboard their names in English. Some of the parents 
objected to this mixture in the schools and the boys were 
sent to the Pentwater reservation. 

Mr. Ballard taught elocution with many gestures and much 
rolling of the r's. Every Friday afternoon was a period for 
recitations when he endeavored to fire the sapheads who mostly 

173 



THE YESTERDAYS 

were too green to burn. He tried in vain to inspire one of these 
Indians with the fact that the "Ragged Rascal Ran" and 
rolled his r's all the time he was running, but finally gave up 
and told the boy to recite his own way. In perfect imitation of 
Mr. Ballard's most impressive gestures the Indian gravely 
proclaimed, "The d — thief run like h — ," and the principal 
was the first to shout his approval. 

For a long time Mr. Ballard filled the pulpit of the little 
church at Steele's landing, now Lamont. The country was 
being rapidly settled with the best of eastern people, almost to 
a man American bom. There were few papers to spread the 
news and the preacher's two-hour talk was a fine treat, for he 
went to them with head and heart full of the great events 
of the day. 

Those were abolition days and there was an underground 
route for the black man that touched Steele's landing on the 
way from the south to Canada. 

One Sunday afternoon I was at the landing with my canoe 
and was somewhat overawed when the preacher asked to go 
home with me. Farmers usually gave him a lift part of the 
way or the steamboat came along. He made himself a cushion 
of wild grape vine in the bow with a piece of driftwood for a 
back, talked of the river and sang, not the chantys of the river 
man, but Scotch and Irish melodies, until he fell asleep. And I 
knew that my schoolmaster was at heart only a boy after all. 

The West Side Meeting House 
This meeting house fronted Bridge-st. near the west end of 
the bridge. It was there when I came to town and I had no 
right to find fault with it, but some way it got on my nerves. 
There was nothing about it that appealed to a boy of my build, 
especially on bright Sunday mornings. 

Painted Venetian red outside and smoke-tanned to a faded 
olive inside, the windows were of seven by nine glass. One 
of the deacons was known as "Old Seven By Nine." 

The seats were clear stuff pine in straight lines. There was 
no place for a shoulder blade or an angle where a fellow could 
rest his conscience. Sometimes in summer, clouds of fish flies 

174 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

swarmed outside and a few thousands were snared in the cob- 
webs that ornamented the interior. There were two large 
box stoves which the boys were supposed to feed on cold days. 

There was nothing that would drive a boy to the woods 
much quicker than the thought of bucking up wood on Sunday 
morning. If the people who made up the congregation had not 
been the best Christians in the world the ministers who came 
there to preach would have died of homesickness. 

Grand Rapids at this time was blessed with good singers, 
men and women, and the church had its share of them. If 
the preacher found only misery and judgment in his text the 
choir assisted the congregation to something like happiness 
and content. There was no organ and the belief that the fiddle 
was a part of Satan's outfit had a strong hold on this west 
side meeting house. 

Henry Stone was an officer and member of the church. He 
was also a fine musician and being of Revolutionary stock he 
made no attempt to smother the fife and driun. He also played 
the fiddle and rosined his bow for the hymns, pitching the 
tune for the members of the choir. It was one Easter morning 
and all the country and town folk assembled for service, when, 
for the first time in the history of that meeting house, the clear 
notes of a fife penetrated the peaceful atmosphere. 

Henry Stone certainly made everyone sit up and take 
notice. It was like a warning that old Nick himself had ar- 
rived. Some of the deacons blew their noses loudly, others 
wiped their unbelieving spectacles. Old Mrs. Weinberger, 
whom the boys rather fittingly called "Mrs. Vinegar," grabbed 
at her brood of four and marched out. 

The following Sunday Henry came in with his fiddle and 
the congregation gave a good imitation of bumble-bees about 
to swarm. Some of those dear old people continued to buzz 
until a traveling peddler came along and sold the church a 
melodian that groaned as if it was full of pain and green 
apples. 

Thanks to Henry Stone the church began to hold some 
interest for the boys. Also the real musical education of the 
west side boomed that summer. At a corner bench in dad's 

175 



THE YESTERDAYS 

shop, now moved to the west side, the boys worked busily on 
cane fish poles. Cut into lengths between joints, they made 
good fifes and the boys also acquired considerable skill in 
making corn-stalk fiddles. A large crop of these musical in- 
struments were produced and some of them are today family 
keepsakes of the old west side people. And through it all 
Henry, unafraid, marched with his fife at the head of the 
Fourth of July parade. 

With the City Firemen 

One afternoon in 1857, 1 occupied a reserved seat on the top 
of a house on Monroe street along with some forty odd boys 
and girls and saw twenty-five business places destroyed by 
fire. The fire started in a drug store on Monroe between Wat- 
erloo and Ottawa-sts. 

There were three fire companies at that time and Number 
One and Number Two were in the crater, while Number Three 
was working to save surrounding property. It looked from 
my position as if all the people of the town were helping; 
throwing glass and china from upper windows and lugging 
feather beds down stairways. 

From one of the stores many large boxes of dry paints were 
carried into the street. Every store kept whisky in those days : 
none of them drinking water. As a result the male population, 
thirsty and hard pressed by the flames, got a little dizzy and 
began tumbling into the paint boxes. Yellows and greens and 
purple began to blend with the blue and gray of smoke and 
ashes. If any of you have a desire to know how funny a man 
really can look, fill his inside with fire water and his outside 
with the colors of the rainbow. 

Were it not that the wind-driven fire brands threatened the 
entire town it would have been the most successful carnival 
the people ever put on the street. 

From a doctor's ofl[ice some fellows salvaged a pickling 
cask. It tipped into the gutter and scattered the contents and 
an Indian with a scalping knife could not have stampeded a 
crowd more quickly. 

Number One and Number Two fire companies became 

176 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

badly demoralized by evening. Overcome by spirits and 
crusted with color they disappeared from the scene of con- 
flagration. Number Three saved the town by working until 
daylight next morning. The women keeping them going by 
carrying coffee and sandwiches. The following Sunday every 
church in town was given a sermon on temperance. 

As a reward of merit to Number Three company for keep- 
ing sober, the women of the town expressed their appreciation 
by the gift of a beautiful satin banner, which is now among 
the treasures of the Kent Scientific Museum. 

This fire had all the thrills of a great battle. It was the 
fireside story of the year and while it distressed many people 
for a long time, now that the paint is washed off they can 
smile, even at the foreman of the company, who, lying on his 
back in a box of red paint, waived his brass trumpet vaguely 
and shouted: ^'Play away. Number Two." 

Firemen of the Fifties 

Fire fighting is an inherited trait. Every boy gloried in his 
father on parade. When the town had three fire companies 
there was an auxiliary force of small sons following up each 
one. The writer was a trailer of Nmnber Three and feels that 
he would not be loyal to the memory of that west side aux- 
iliary if he had no word for their achievements. 

In the fall, ''when the frost was on the vine" and fires about 
the stumps on vacant lots gave enchantment to the night, war 
dances were staged. They were the only dances many of the 
boys could have, for their parents belonged to a church which 
prohibited such exercise. 

The commons on Stocking-av. was a great congregating 
place, stumps being plentiful. Nearby there lived a good old 
colored mammy whose gifts as a fortune teller had brought 
her fame and some wealth. 

In the shuffling of cards she always found "a handsome 
young gentleman sure after you, my dear lady. You keep track 
of yoiu* steps and he sure done catch up with you." 

Moreover, she found good fortune for the moderate sum of 

177 . . 



THE YESTERDAYS 

twenty-five cents. Between seasons she hung out a sign, "Goin' 
out washun dun here." 

The madam's house, a two-story structure, had so many 
lean-tos built on that a boy could jump from the rain barrel 
to the roof of the first and then by series of angles and climbs 
reach the peak of the main roof out of which came the stove- 
pipe from the lower floor. 

At that date there were not many colored people here, but 
they had a little church and every once in a while had a social 
to raise funds for repairing the shingles. 

One evening the social was at the madam's and every col- 
ored person in town was in attendance. They were just about 
eating up the results of the shingle collection when Number 
Three fire auxiliary, playing about a blazing stump on the 
commons, discovered madam's chimney on fire — a roaring 
torch in the gloom of a cloudy night. In breathless haste the 
boys formed a bucket brigade and, shinning up the various 
roofs, the most daring hero reached the peak and turned the 
first and only bucket of water into the red-hot pipe. 

One must have a fireman's experience to know what hap- 
pened to the social below; a bang like a thunderbolt, soot, 
ashes, fire and steam. By the time the folks had the cinders 
out of their eyes and the fear of the Lord out of their hearts 
the firemen sensed they had stirred up something. 

Faster running was done in getting away from that fire 
than was ever done in getting to another, and all that fall and 
winter the sons of Number Three held their war dances in 
another place on the west side. 

My Fire Service Before the Civil War 

When about fourteen years old I became interested in 
Number Three fire company. My father was a member and it 
was every boy's ambition to run with the engine. 

No salaries were paid; in fact, one had to pay fifty cents 
annual dues and fifty cents fine for missing a fire or monthly 
meeting. I was assigned the duty of bearing the torch, a brass 
globe that held about a quart of fish oil on the end of a four- 
foot staff. I must be first man at the engine house and with 

178 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

the torch run ahead of the machine to light the road to the fire. 
Once there and the machine set, I must go with the pipeman 
and light the way into stairways and other dark places. It 
certainly was a life of adventure. 

It was my start in public affairs and caused many sleepless 
hours, with no pay, in return. I rather think those men and 
boys would have felt insulted if pay had been offered them. 

Mother made me a red shirt and embroidered in silk on the 
front a figure three. Every time I carried the torch mother 
had to wash the fish oil out of my clothes. That was one of 
the penalties she paid for the glory of having a fireman in the 
family. 

I had the trade pretty well learned by the beginning of 
the Civil war and when the various war organizations absorbed 
nearly every able-bodied man in Number Three company it 
became necessary to make up a new hose company. 

I was elected foreman with a silver plated trumpet as a 
badge of authority. I had reached the top round of the ladder. 
Boys had attained a commercial value then and the common 
council announced they would pay five dollars each at the 
end of a year's service. 

When the year ended the city clerk, Mr. Doubleday, sent 
each one of the company an order for five dollars, but there 
was no money in the treasury. Then John W. Squires, the 
miller, said he would give us a two himdred-pound barrel of 
flour for each order. 

I went to his mill, built of river stone on the river's east 
bank, not far south of the bridge, and took my flour home in 
my canoe to save expense. It was the proudest moment of 
my fire fighting life when I rolled that barrel of flour into 
mother's kitchen. My father was in the army and a whole 
barrel of flour at one time was cause for a jubilee. I was one 
of twenty boys who made their mothers happy that day. 

I am quite certain that this was the first pay ever given 
volunteer firemen in this city. 

Hose company Number Three became a west side institu- 
tion. The members were from the best families and were a 
live bunch. Nearly all men of military age being in the first 

179 



THE YESTERDAYS 

call for war, the sons began to keep the home fires burning. 
They found time to buck up wood for the kitchen stoves and 
play man of the house. They had a regular drill night at the 
Armory, where soldiers were made, and a weekly social dance 
at the engine house, with an invitation list and printed pro- 
gram. Tickets were fifty cents and there was a company fund 
to meet expenses. 

From this training, the early days of 1862 called them to 
army service almost to a man and they stepped naturally into 
the ranks. And though this is not a war story just let me 
state, that of the eighteen boys who marched away from Num- 
ber Three fire company, fourteen sleep in the ground of the 
sunny South. 

Experience of a Volunteer Fireman 

There was no small responsibility attached to the job of 
being a fireman in the early days of the town. Most of the 
buildings were of wood and lumber yards were numerous. All 
the fuel was wood. Fish oil, tallow candles and camphene 
furnished light. It took very little to start a fire and there 
was always plenty of combustible material for it to feed upon. 
So a fireman's responsibilities were never far from mind. 

One never heard, in those days, of nervous prostration. 
When the bottom fell out of the pork barrel a man did not stop 
to wash his face in the brine. In all their hard times those fire- 
men kept their shirts, belts and caps on the parlor table ready 
for instant use and while not nervous they gained a fire in- 
stinct that many a time had them on the run for the engine 
house before the alarm sounded. 

During my ten years' experience in fire fighting I was often 
dressed before the alarm box sounded, and once stood in the 
street, holding my horse by the bridle, until a glow on the sky 
gave me my direction. 

The night the Eagle hotel burned, in the early eighties, my 
gray saddle mare kicked her way out of the stable and was at 
the fire a mile away before any of the firemen were there. No 
one knew how long it had been smoldering, but the entire 
building came down with a crash before half of the depart- 

180 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

ment was at hand. Often when I became assistant chief men 
came to me with their resignations and the excuse was, "It's 
getting on my nerves. I am out before the alarm and I am 
going to quit." 

When David Caswell was foreman of Number Three there 
was one volunteer, a leading citizen and daring fire fighter, 
who often came to him predicting fires but not their localities. 
So accurate were his predictions that he and other members 
of the company sometimes slept in the engine house waiting 
the call. 

Finally this man told Mr. Caswell there was going to be a 
fire longer than a street and threatening the entire town, and 
for two nights men slept on the floor of the engine house and 
those living near by, in most of their clothing. This was a 
long time before the invention of electric fire alarms and when 
there were no night police. 

When the call finally came, the woodenware factory be- 
longing to Mr. Caswell just at the east end of the bridge, was 
all ablaze. With a rush Number Three machine and crew ran 
under cover of the bridge, but so rapidly did the fire spread 
over the bridge that men hauling the engine were scorched and 
those following jumped into the river to save their lives. They 
got their engine safely to the east side, but the bridge was com- 
pletely destroyed and they had to load the engine on a scow 
above the dam to get it back to the engine house on the west 
side. 

The man I referred to as predicting this fire became for a 
time an object of gossip and suspicion, but loved and trusted 
by his companions, he did not leave the company — simply 
ceased to give his warnings because sensitive to the attention 
being drawn to himself. 

One of the most daring feats ever performed by a fireman 
was that of Tom Bedell of Number Two company at an early 
morning blaze that destroyed the Bissell Carpet Sweeper 
plant. Trapped on the upper floor he dropped from a fifth 
story window to the window ledges below, making five success- 
ful drops and catching each ledge until he reached the ground 
practically unharmed. 

181 



THE YESTERDAYS 

The Volunteer Firemen of Early Days 

The first fire engine in Grand Rapids was the hand work of 
one of its own citizens, WilUam Peaslee. It was made in 1846 
and it cost sixty dollars to build an engine house to shelter it. 

The engine was of the tub pattern. The tub, thirty by 
sixty inches and fifteen inches deep, was set on dead axles and 
on wheels thirty inches high. The water must be first dipped 
in by buckets, often from the river. Once a red-fin mullet 
choked the pump and before they got the fish out the build- 
ing was a total loss to the insurance company. 

In service the pioneer engine was pushed close to the fire, 
the water turned in with buckets and pumped out by four 
men, two on either side. 

The drawback to this engine was the reluctance of men 
and women to line up from the river to the fire and pass full 
buckets one way and empty ones the other. Everybody wanted 
to be near the fire and see the engine squirt. To help out this 
laudable ambition cisterns were built at some street intersec- 
tions. These could be filled by roof water on rainy days. The 
public cisterns were helped out by wells and dwelling house 
cisterns. There existed a belief in scientific minds that soft 
rain water pumped easier than hard spring water and many 
housewives found dry cisterns on wash-day. 

Finally some public spirited men passed the hat and with 
six hundred and seventy-five dollars secured from the same 
builder a larger engine that required sixteen men to pmnp and 
would throw five barrels of water a minute over the roof of 
a two-story building. 

This engine was stored in the schoolhouse on Prospect 
hill. The town then had two fire engines — one to throw a 
short, the other a long distance, much like the houses in 
Shantytown that had two holes in the outside door, one large 
to let the old cat in, the other small for the kitten. 

Many of the men who manned the second engine, living a 
long distance away, were wind-broken before they reached 
the hilltop and seldom had a fair show at a fire. 

The new engine had a suction to fill the tub when the fire 

182 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

happened to be near a cistern or the river, but as the depart- 
ment had but two hundred and fifty feet of hose the bucket 
brigade was not disbanded. 

The hose, made of heavy sole leather riveted with copper, 
cost a lot of money. Greasing it twice a year with neat's-foot 
oil took much of the romance out of the lives of the hose com- 
pany. 

The men who served on these engines were unpaid volun- 
teers. Every live man wanted to be identified with the fire 
department and the town was blessed with live men. There 
were a scattering few known as "basswood hams" who did not 
run with the machine when the fire bell rang. 

While no one drew pay these firemen were fined fifty cents 
if absent from a fire. In Lis uniform of red shirt, brickbat 
hat, and patent leather belt, the fireman was the admiration of 
the fair sex. Often when the alarm came it took so long for a 
man to run home, slip on his red shirt and his belt — for how 
else could he keep his trousers up — ^that by the time he 
arrived the fire had burned itself out. The foreman with his 
brass trumpet was the envy of the boys. 

Once a week the firemen had a dance, to which only those 
in good standing were admitted. Tickets at fifty cents paid 
for music and invitations. Supper was extra. If a fellow came 
in with a liquor breath they threw him out so hard he never 
came back. 

These were little sprouts leading to the growth of our de- 
partment as we have it today. Then, if the department ar- 
rived at the fire in thirty minutes it had made good time. 
Today, if not there in thirty seconds it is investigated. If 
our present fire marshal was seen running down Monroe-av. 
with a brass trumpet looking for his fire company he would 
land in the state hospital at Kalamazoo. 

Old Volunteer Firemen 

Often in dodging trafiic on Campau Square the writer runs 
head on to Warren C. Weatherly, who fifty odd years ago was 
foreman in a rival volunteer fire company. He boosted with 
all his might for Number One. I pegged for Number Three. 

183 



THE YESTERDAYS 

At the present time fire fighting is a profession calling for 
bravery and the best physical strength. The men are paid for 
their service and sometimes earn a great deal more than they 
receive. In the early days of the town men had the same qual- 
ifications but were not on the pay roll. Fire fighting was a 
public duty. Civic pride and the saving of life and property 
were the incentives ; to many men it was a time of adventure. 
The men equipped themselves often to the extent of paying 
for their fire fighting apparatus. 

When the first Lagrave-st. fire station, called Number One, 
was built, Mr. Weatherly, then in the service, selected and or- 
ganized the men who made up the company. With rare good 
judgment he selected from the volunteer force Henry Lemoine, 
afterward chief of the department, giving his entire life to the 
service, and Solon Baxter, a Civil war cavalryman who for 
many years, as assistant chief, gave exhibitions of daring 
horsemanship through the busy streets. Then there was 
Henry Carr, the son of a noted Civil war officer. He left the 
fire company to become a city librarian and is now at Scran- 
ton, Pa., one of the noted men of the country in that profession. 
Mr. Weatherly, himself, as a sanitary engineer and builder, 
is well known in every city of the state. 

The men named indicate the caliber of Number One com- 
pany. Their energies were directed to building up the fire 
fighting force that the city required. One of New York's 
famous regiments in the Civil war were all volunteer firemen 
and so powerful were they in the life of the community that 
city councils began to use them as a political body. 

The firemen in Grand Rapids could not be handled in that 
way. Each ward alderman worked for his own interest, so 
everything in the way of better equipment came slowly and 
often at the expense of the firemen themselves. 

Grand Rapids was a mill town and fires were frequent and 
often fierce because it took so long to get in the alarm. At 
night the glow on the sky was all the guide we had. To be the 
first to get a stream of water on the fire was a company's am- 
bition and Foreman Weatherly of Number One began ways 

184 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

to secure quick alarms for his men. There was one all-night 
police station where the Grand Rapids Savings bank is now 
located and there the calls were first reported. Mr. Weather- 
ly studied out a plan to connect the Lagrave-st. fire station 
with the police station by wire and scoop the other companies. 
The cost of the material would be eighty dollars. He peti- 
tioned the city council to pay half this cost. He would con- 
tribute the labor and if the scheme was a failure he agreed to 
stand all the expense. 

He arranged an electrical alarm, a twelve-inch gong along- 
side a twelve-inch clock dial, which in turning would make a 
contact with round brass head nails. From the nails a wire 
w^as to lead to the home and bedside of each member of the 
company. The police would receive the alarm and then swing 
the dial until the round of numbers had been called. 

The plan was a success and the Lagrave-st. boys beat the 
other companies to the fires, so these petitioned for the same 
favor, but the council after weeks of debate decided to put in 
six Gamewell fire alarm boxes in different sections of the city. 

The firemen, disgusted with the slow going aldermen, quiet- 
ly began a game of their own, and through legislative action 
placed the department in the control of a commission that 
served the entire city and in time gave Grand Rapids the best 
fire department in the country. From Mr. Weatherly's be- 
ginnings, the savings in insurance alone to the property own- 
ers, has been many times the cost and maintenance of the de- 
partment. 

The surviving members of the old volunteer companies 
will always recall with gratitude the women of their day who 
so loyally aided them in times of unusual stress. The mill and 
lumber yard fires were often fierce affairs and no matter how 
bad the sleet or snow or darkness, some good woman was sure 
to come with hot coffee, sandwiches or doughnuts. Mrs. 
Wilder D. Foster, Mrs. Charlotte Richards, Mrs. James D. 
Robinson and my own dear mother, come to mind as some of 
the good angels of the day, though there were many others 
who deserve equal credit. 

185 



THE YESTERDAYS 

Number Three's Engine House 

The membership of Number Three fire company included 
all the real live men of the community, men of all trades and 
professions. At this date it would be difficult for me to recall 
all the names of those leaders of thought and action, many of 
whom in the days of the Civil war won rank and title. 

Beginning in 1859 and finishing in 1860, without public 
aid, they secured the lot and built the engine house on Scrib- 
ner-st., for many years past occupied by the West Side Ladies* 
Literary club. 

Most of the labor on this building was done after six 
o'clock on summer evenings. Men who had put in ten hours 
on day jobs hurried to the engine house and worked until 
darkness drove them home. Often the wife with a baby on 
one arm and a basket on the other met her husband and they 
had supper at the building so that no minute of daylight would 
be lost. In those days the town owed no man a living. Every 
man felt he owed the community all that he could give for 
its advancement. 

As the front of our engine house took shape, pillars of 
Grand Rapids marble quarried in the Hovey plaster mines 
were cut and polished for either side of the door. These were 
the only parts of the building that proved not durable. Doors 
and window frames of elaborate design were made by hand. 
Fine stained glass windows were put in. The glass came 
from Chicago and was very carefully spread out and studied 
over before being leaded into place. The color effects were 
highly satisfactory in the glow of the afternoon sun. 

An artist lettered the wall in gold leaf ''Alpha and Omega." 
Not many of the men knew what this meant, but were careful 
not to expose their ignorance. 

The opening night was the great event of the year. All 
the town was there. There was the best of music by a score of 
fiddlers and dancing kept up until daylight. Some of the good 
church people danced and later were summoned before the 
church dignitaries for discipline. 

Never again until the great homecoming dinner served on 
Pearl-st. bridge at the close of the Civil war were so many 

186 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

beautiful ladies at one gathering. In an improvised bower in 
the rear of the lower floor were two barrels of lemonade; the 
one for men had a stick in it. At midnight a fine supper was 
served. All the table silverware on the west side was there 
and although a colored string was tied to each piece it took the 
balance of the summer to separate and return it to the right- 
ful owners. 

Not until Civil war days was the engine house dropped 
from the social calendar. Occasionally the rival companies 
or a revengeful, rejected guest started a fire in a slab pile or 
shingle mill just to break up the festivities. The firemen 
always kept their fire shirts and rough pants ready for emer- 
gency and if an alarm came in there was a wild scramble to 
get out of party clothes and on the run with the hand engine 
and hose reel. 

Fire Company Number Three Visits Muskegon 

Here is a word of greeting to old-time firemen of the "Mill 
Town" on the lake, who in sawdust days of the seventies 
sometimes called on Grand Rapids for assistance. 

The Muskegon firemen, under Chief Frank Jiroch, were 
as eflicient as America produced, but when fire started in the 
mills or lumber yards it had the aid of the winds from the 
lake and spread with such rapidity that often every effort 
had to be devoted to saving life while the fire sometimes 
spread from mills and Imnber to the entire business and resi- 
dence section. 

Grand Rapids always made a quick response to these calls 
from neighboring towns and they were numerous. For con- 
venience, a flat car was kept by the G. R. & I. railroad at a 
landing platform near its west Bridge-st. station. 

One wild night in September, 1874, when the wind was 
blowing a forty -mile gale, Number Three company was called 
to load a steamer and hose cart for Muskegon. The western 
sky was aglow and the stars were playing hide and seek with 
the fast flying clouds, when we cleared the junction — now Ful- 
ler station — and headed toward Nimica, where we switched 
for Muskegon. 

187 



THE YESTERDAYS 

I was the foreman of Number Three and felt a certain re- 
sponsibility for the safe conduct of the expedition, but had to 
exercise most of it in hanging to the hose cart. It seemed the 
way that flat car jumped about that George Elliot, the engineer 
of the locomotive, and James Bessey, his fireman, had taken 
cross lots and were dodging stumps and cattle. 

Elliot had one hand on the lever and the other pulling the 
whistle cord, while Bessey kept a line of wood going into the 
furnace and a swirl of coals and sparks rolling from the stack 
over the firemen, who were clinging to the steamer and cart 
wheels. 

We were making a mile a minute and if we had struck one 
of the cows that were running at large, the man in the moon 
would have had cream in his morning coffee. 

I tried to beg for more caution but was kept too busy spit- 
ting cinders. Then I saw Jim Bessey, who had served in my 
company during the Civil war, grinning at me over the top of 
the wood pile on the tender and my confidence returned. 

The track has been cleared at both switching points and 
we arrived in Muskegon about one a. m. A nervy driver with 
a pair of horses ran the company down a long avenue of burn- 
ing wreckage. Even the roadway of plank and sawdust was 
ablaze in places. But we had to make it in order to reach the 
slip at the lake and get water. The fire had spread all along 
the lake front. The Muskegon firemen had lost line after 
line of hose, part of their apparatus, and with burned hands 
and blistered faces were still putting up a heroic fight. We 
were soon putting up about as desperate a battle ourselves, 
for mills, lumber yards, business places and homes were being 
wiped out over at least fifteen blocks. 

Into this furnace where we were working, came a man who 
seemed to be warped out of shape by the heat. He pleaded, 
''For God's Sake, save my lot. My house is gone, my shop, my 
barn — everything is gone but the lot. Save that!" 

There have been times when my head has been so thick 
that I have been slow in catching on. I was somewhat dazed 
and not until the fire was checked did I realize that his lot 
was a long-time accumulation of slabs and sawdust resting 

188 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

on a foundation of lily pads and cattails. We heeded his 
prayer and flooded the place before we withdrew for another 
location. In after years I tried in vain to locate that lot, but 
when I see the pleasant streets, the parks and fine buildings 
of today, I rejoice that Number Three was able at least to 
save the ground on which they stand. 

We worked steadily on that fire until late the following 
afternoon. Citizens kept us supplied with coffee and sand- 
wiches until we were ready to return to Grand Rapids. Then 
we were given a dinner at the best hotel and the mayor was 
on hand to thank us. I am sorry that I cannot recall the name 
of the mayor, for his expressions of gratitude repaid the Grand 
Rapids firemen many times and made us feel we had been 
serving our own home folks. 

When our outfit was again loaded upon the fiat car we 
made George Elliot promise to stick to the rails on the way 
home. Then all lay down to sleep on the floor of the old flat 
car. 

General I. C. Smith's "Pony" 

In the seventies large droves of saddle horses were shipped 
from the western plains to eastern markets. Many of these 
animals had been used by the cattle herdsmen and buffalo 
hunters and not a few in army service against the Indians. 
Many horses were branded with the mark "U. S." and saddle 
scars were frequent and denoted training. 

From one of these droves General Smith selected for the 
fire department, of which he was chief, a horse that responded 
to the name Pony. Besides a ranch brand he bore several 
scars, but none that disfigured him. He had a dark, almost 
black, silken coat, three white ankles and a three point white 
star on his forehead. 

General Smith, noted in the Civil war cavalry for his horse- 
manship, had also seen service on the cattle ranges of Kansas 
and Colorado and had had experience as a buffalo hunter. At 
first sight he bought the Pony, but was also attracted to a bay 
horse, free from blemish except for the faint brand U. S. Baby 
was his name and he was a garrison horse — a woman's pet, 
excitable but kind and a perfect saddler. 

189 



THE YESTERDAYS 

The salesman was reluctant to part with him, but finally 
did so because the general was taking Pony. These two saddle 
horses cost the city about two hundred dollars and because 
other horses of this lot were sold at fifty dollars or less the 
grumbling of some of the city fathers was long and loud. 

Baby was kept as an extra supply horse and we often rode 
him to keep him in trim, but the general found in Pony his 
ideal for speed, gait and style. About this time the buffalo 
robe was the popular covering used by farmers, city drivers 
or livery stables, in wagons or sleighs, and cold weather had 
no sooner set in than the general learned that Pony's scars had 
come from horn or hoof and gone in deeper than the hide. 

The odor of the robes, even in a stable, gave the horse a 
nervous chill and the sight of one threw him into a panic. 
While running for a fire on North Canal street one day the 
general cut close in the rear of a farm wagon. Pony made 
a lunge to the side that landed his rider full length on his back 
— fortunately on the buffalo robe in the wagon body. 

Three times that winter the general was unhorsed by Pony 
jumping from under him and finally he made a headlong slide 
on the street car track, breaking the general's ankle and lay- 
ing him up several weeks. 

Jimmie Howell, the supply driver, took so many tumbles 
that no count was kept of them. When the general left the 
fire service no one was found to ride the Pony and deprived of 
his exercise he soon had to be retired. 

Baby, the supply horse, had evidently been an army post 
pet, probably stolen by some horse thief, for it would seem 
that no soldier would ever have parted with so lovable and 
intelligent an animal. Neither whip nor spur was ever used 
on him and the call of a bugle or sound of a band put him on 
parade in an instant. 

In those days there were a great many fine saddle horses, 
several of the police officers were well mounted and riding 
was a popular diversion with both men and women. 

Every parade brought out the best the city had and the 
fire department was always a prominent feature. On two or 
three Fourth of July's the town staged what was very properly 

190 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

termed Horribles. In 1878 an added feature of the parade was 
an Indian pageant managed by General Smith, who imper- 
sonated Sitting Bull. I loaned my horse Fly to a friend and 
all rigged up as Lone Star was mounted on Baby. We were 
the real thing; even our families did not recognize us — ^war 
paint, feather bonnets and moccasins, riding bare back and 
our only saddle equipment a mouth strap. 

The streets were jammed with people and when the parade 
started the profanity of the Horribles, the whooping of Indians 
and waving of war bonnets went all right with the average 
horse, but was too much for the nerves of Pony and the Baby. 
Sitting Bull left very hurriedly for the east and after a rest 
somewhere in the vicinity of Fisk lake returned to his home 
on Lagrave street after dark. 

Baby headed up Canal street, as wild a horse as ever 
carried an Indian. How the people ever saved themselves I 
do not know, except that the horse jumped over those he could 
not dodge. Wet with perspiration he became slippery as an 
eel and trained to rein by a touch on the neck the mouth strap 
would not halt him. When I tried to hold him I slipped up 
near his ears, so when nearing the city pumping station and 
a clear plot of lawn, I leaned far over and gripped his nostrils, 
choking off his wind. We keeled head over heels on the grass 
and some time later sneaked through back streets to Number 
Four engine house for a rubdown. 

There was one Sitting Bull and one Lone Star, one Pony 
and one Baby, who never appeared in another Indian celebra- 
tion. 

My Gray Fire Horse 

From 1864, when Grand Rapids fire teams were only volun- 
teer affairs, social organizations, kept going mainly by enter- 
tainments and private gifts, changes came rapidly until the 
early seventies when by a combination of events Gen. I. C. 
Smith — new to fire work — was made chief of the department 
as an organizer and I became his assistant because of my 
fire service. 

To facilitate the work. Gen. Smith and I procured saddle 
horses which became as well known to the public as were any 

191 



THE YESTERDAYS 

of the men of the town. They raced neck and neck to many 
a fire, the general's dark bay with three white feet and my 
gray mare, and they dearly loved the cheers of the people 
along the way. Many folks remember my Fly and have asked 
me to tell something about her. 

Julius Berkey bought this thoroughbred Kentucky colt 
for his daughter's use. She was well broken to the saddle 
but too high strung for city life, so Mr. Berkey offered her 
to me for two hundred and twenty-five dollars just what he 
gave for her in Kentucky. The city paid me a salary of six 
hundred dollars per annum but did not figure on horse feed. 
My first year's pay went for equipment, which included 
saddle, bridle, a buggy, harness and blankets, and I used the 
outfit as I pleased in my private business also. 

The first man to mount Fly was going to show me how 
to ride, but she took the bits between her teeth and carried 
him about five blocks, dumped him headlong over a garden 
fence and returned to the stable. 

During my army life I acquired the habit of talking to my 
horse and from the first meeting with the gray I fell naturally 
into the old lingo. She seemed to understand and answered 
with her ears. Sugar always brought a delighted whinny and 
I seldom failed to share at least the core of my apple. 

One unfortunate office boy, Frank Widoe by name, will 
never forget the punishment she administered for tantalizing 
her with an apple. When tired of begging for a bite she 
gathered his coat collar in her teeth and shook him until his 
cries brought the entire office force to the rescue. 

I lived several blocks from the engine house and had a 
private alarm connection in my sleeping room. It took but a 
moment to reach the stable, throw on the saddle and be on the 
street. Frequently my wife counted the box number and 
called it as I dashed past, but at night the glow on the sky 
was usually a sufficient guide and the mare covered ground 
while I finished dressing. She seemed always first to hear 
the bell and if I was slow in responding nearly kicked the 
stable down. Once she made her way out a side door and 

192 



OF GRAND RAPIDS 

departed over a back lot fence, reporting for duty while I 
went on foot. 

One stormy winter night she shied from under me at the 
corner of Third and Turner so suddenly that I sat behind her 
ears for half a block. Returning later from the fire she danced 
to the sidewalk at the same place. I dismounted to investi- 
gate and found a drunken man stretched full length, his 
clothing frozen stiff in the mud. 

Number Three men came with lanterns, chopped him loose 
and took him to the station to thaw out. 

One other bitterly cold night when the wind whirled the 
snow up Canal-st., crowds of men sought the shelter of nearby 
store doorways to watch the fire in a hardware store. I dis- 
mounted, as was my custom, leaving the horse to care for 
herself. With open mouth she charged a doorway shelter and 
held the fort until one of the steamer drivers came to cover 
her with a blanket. 

The wind gave the firemen on the upper floor a hard fight 
and a little later when I was half way up a ladder I heard 
the crowd on the street cheering and looking down saw Fly 
with her front feet on the third round of the ladder trying 
to follow me. 

Once we were called to the Nelson-Matter furniture fac- 
tory on Lyon-st. A fire in the basement filled the main floor 
and machine room with dense smoke. Firemen had no gas 
masks in those days and I was struggling through the stifling 
air, feeling my way between machines and trying to locate the 
source of the trouble. I heard steps behind me and thought 
the pipemen were coming with a line of hose until the snort 
of my horse came full in my face. I made what haste I could 
to get her out, but we were both nearly suffocated. 

For four years Fly never lost a run. Then came a fierce 
factory fire on upper Canal-st. and in an attempt to follow 
me she was caught on a street with fire on either side and 
before I could mount and get away was seriously burned on 
face and neck. For six weeks I rode a little terror named 
Baby that the department had purchased as an extra for the 
chief. 

193 



THE YESTERDAYS OF GRAND RAPIDS 

Long after I had my fill of fire fighting and had retired 
from service the little mare made the most of every oppor- 
tunity to keep in the game. 

One night, excited by the glare on the sky, she kicked the 
stable door open and was about the first on the scene at the 
burning of the Eagle hotel. I followed with the saddle on my 
shoulders and the old comrades gave us a hearty cheer. Twice 
the mare took the bits in her teeth and ran away to fires when 
my wife was driving, and one evening when my young daughter 
was in the saddle she made a record run to the south end of 
town. 

When James G. Blaine came to the city for a great politi- 
cal gathering I loaned Fly to a friend and rode the supply 
horse. We paraded down from the old Grand Trunk station. 
Fly loved to play in the water and while passing a watering 
trough at Coldbrook crossing she ran her nose to the bottom 
of the tank, blew water in every direction and then jumping 
from under my friend left him lying in the mud while she 
made full speed for the head of the column. 

During old age Fly was retired to the farm of George 
Stage, on the Alpine town line north and was finally wrapped 
in her blankets and buried under a clump of maples. 

I'll say for my little gray horse, she was one of the most 
faithful scouts the fire department ever had. 



194 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



016 099 499 A 



